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OLD ANTI-SLAVERY DAYS. 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THK 



COMMEMORATIVE MEETING, 



HELD BY THE 



i)ar)Y^rs ili^bori(;al ooci^by^ 

AT THE • • ;.. 

toy;h hall, danvers, 

APRII, :^6,. 1893, 

WITH INTRODUCTION, LETTERS AND SKETCHES. 



DANVERS : ^"v^ waSH^^- 

DANVEKS MIRROR PRINT. it 'i^^ 

1893. 

[copyright, 1893, BY THE DANVERS HISTORICAL SOCIETY.] 



77- 



OFFICERS AND ASSISTANTS, 181J2-93. 

REV. ALFIJED V. PUTNAM, D.I) I'l-esidont. 

HON. ALDEN P. WHITK, Vice-Fn'.sulrnt. 

MISS SARAH E. HUNT, Sc.cn-tarn. 

MRS. E. M. P. GOULD, Assistant Srcn-Uo-'j. 

DUDLEY A. MASSEY, Tirasiircr. 

GEORGE TAPLEY, i^ihrarimu 

REV. WATSON M. AYltES Assii-tant l.ihniriau . 

MRS. ISADORA E. KEXNEY, Cnnitor. 

MRS. ANNIE G. NEWHVLL Assistant Curator, 

EZKV 1). IIINES Historian. 

MISS MAKY 1'. ROSS E^ porter and Ci-nvrnl Assistant. 

D[':h:cT<)i;s. 

ISRAEL II. ITTN.XM. NATHAN A. 1JUSII15Y. 

M!{S. LOUISA P. WESTON. JOHN H. GOULD. 

MRS, C. ADELINE H.\I,E. JOHN W. PORTER. 

GEOI{GE A. PEU501)Y. CHARLES 11. MASUI'.Y. 

MISS S \UAII W. .MUDGE. 

EXECUTI VE COMMEITEE. 
HON. A. P. WHITE, Chairman. 
LSRAEL H I'UIN.VM. JOHN W. PORTER. 

GEORGE A. PEAliODY. .: • ■ ALFRED P. PUTNAM. 



CONTENTS. 



TAGE. 

Introductory Chapter, or Danvers ami the Abolitionists vii-xxv 

TiiK Mkktixo in Town Ham., Danvkus l-Gl 

Prayer by Rev. William H. Fish, Dedham 2 

Address and Son<; bv Mr. John W. Hutcliinson, Lynn 4 

JJemarks by the Presiiieut of the Society ."> 

Address by Mr. William L'oyd Garrison, Boston <j 

Address by Rev. Samuel May. Leict-ster 12 

Address by Hon. M. M. Fisher, MKhvay 18 

Oriffinal Poem by Mr. Georjre B Bartlett, Concord 24 

Song by tiie Hutchinsons. " (Jar af Emnncipnttoii" 2(! 

Address by H'ln. Parker Pillsbury. Concord, N. H 27 

Song hy the Hutchinsons, " Thcif's )i<> siicJ-l icnrd <is Fair ;-!3 

" " " " •' TIk' Slave's Appi'dl" 35 

Address bv Rev. George W. Porter. 1). 1), Lexington '60 

Address by Mrs. Lucy Stone. Boston ;>8 

Address by .VI rs. Abby M Diaz, Belmont 42 

Address by Rev. Aaron Porte , Fast Alst«ad, N. H 45 

Address by Mr. George W. Putnam, Lynn 50 

Address by Mr. George T. Downing. Jsewport, R. 1 53 

Address by Rev. Peter Randolph, Cliarlestovvn • 55 

Address hy Miss Sarah H. Southwick, Wellesley Hills 5(] 

Address by Rev. Daniel S Whitney, Southboro' 58 

Soiig by the Hutcliinsons, " Vhc Old Graaite State.' • . . 59 

Hymn, "J/./ Cuuntnj, 'tin of thi-c," offerings, etc 60 

Lkttkks vuom Fuikxds <;2-94 

Hon. Frederick Douglass, Anacostia, D. C «2 

Mr. Charles K. Whipple, Newburyport »!3 

Mrs. Kate Tannatt Woods, Salem ()5 

Mr. Jo.seph A. Allen. Medrtehl Ct! 

Rev. Thomas T. Stone. D. D., Bolton «'' 

Hon Francis W. Bird. Walpole «7 

Hon. Simeon Dodge, Marblehead (u 

Rev. Joseph May. Philadelphia, Pa 08 

Mr. John Curtis, Boston (>H 

Rev. William H Fish, Dedham «8 

Rev. Robert Collyer, New York, N. Y (19 

Mrs. Caroline H Dall, Washington, D. C 70 



PACK. 

Mr. Wendell Phillips Garrison, New York, N. Y 70 

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Chace, Valley Falls, li. 1 70 

Rev. Kichanl S. Storrs, U. D., Brooklyn, N. Y 71 

Mrs. Emily W. Taylor, Gennantown, Pa 71 

Mrs. Eilnah D. Cheney, Jamaica Plain 72 

Mrs. Henry Ward Bi-echer, Brooklyn, N. Y 73 

Dr. W. Symington Brown, Stoneham 7,} 

Mr. D. L. Binjiham, .Manchester, (with note about Mr. and Mrs. 

Daniel W. Friend) 7:>, 

Miss Anna L. Coffin, Newburyport 74 

Mrs. Lillie B. Chace Wyman, Valley Falls, R. 1 75 

Mr. Aaron M. Powell, New York, N. Y 7e, 

Miss Mary Grew, Philadelphia, Pa 7(> 

Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, Los Angeles, Cal 78 

Miss Mary J. Loring, Wobiirn 78 

Mr. Francis Jackson Garrison, Boston 7;t 

Mr. Cornelius Wellington, East Lexington 7'.t 

Mr. John J. May, Dorchester , 7i> 

I'rof. Granville B. Putnam, Boston 80 

Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, Chelsea 80 

Mr. Lucian Newhall, Lynn • 80 

Mr. Gilbert L. Streeter, Salem 81 

Dr. James C. Jackson, North Adams 81 

Rev. William W. Silvester. D. D., Philadelphia, Pa 83 

Kcv. William H. Furness, D. D.. Philadelphia, Pa 84 

Mr. John M. Lennox, Boston 84 

Mrs. Martha Waldo Greene, East Greenwich, 11. 1 84 

Mrs. Fanny Garrison Villard, New York, N. Y S5 

Mr. Daniel Kicketson, New Bedford 8(5 

Mr. Walter B. Allen, Lynn 8t) 

Mr. Robert Adams, Fall River 8(! 

Mr. William D. Thompson, Lynn 87 

Mr. George W. Clark, Detroit, Mich 88 

Dea. Joshua T. Everett, Westminster 89 

Mr. Willi im Stone, New York, N. Y DO 

Mr. D ivid Mead, Danvers ilO 

Mrs. Anne E. Dnmon (with note about Mrs. F. E. Bigelow), Concord . i»l 

Mr. J. M. W. Yerrinton, Chelsea 01 

Col. Thomas W. Higginson, Cambridge •■)2 

Mr. Theodore D. Weld, Hyde Park <)•_' 

Mr. Charles E. Graves, Hartford, Conn «.)•_> 

Rev. Samuel F. Smith, D. ])., Newton !);', 

Mrs. Harriet M. Lothroi), Boston ;»5 



VI 

PAGK. 

BroGUAPHiCAL Skktciiks !)j-I40 

Hev. William II. Fi>li !'"> 

.lohu W. Hutchinson '^^ 

William Lloj'd Garrison lOU 

llev. Samuel May 101 

Hon. M. M. Fisher lOH 

Georiie B. Bartlett lO.') 

Hon; Parker Pillshnry lOfi 

llev. Georire W. Porter, I). 1) HI 

Mrs. Lucy Stone 112 

Mrs. Abby M. Diaz H'' 

I?ev. Aaron Porter 118 

Georire W. Putnam 11'.) 

George 'r. ]~)owninir 1'-';! 

Kev. Peter Uando'ph 120 

Kev. Daniel S. Whitney ; . K^l 

Miss Sarah H. Southwick 1^1 

ADniTioNAi. CoNTHimrnoNs. 

From Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Boston 141 

From Mr. F. B. Sanborn, Concord 144 

From Charles A. Greene, M. D., Boston 147 

From Mrs. Catharine S. B. Spear, Passaic, N. J 141) 

From afiiend of Hon. Simeon Dod^e l.iO 

■'The Liberator" in Danvers 1.">1 



Introductory Chapter. 

DANVKRS AND TIIK ABOLITIONISTS. 

The Anti-Slavery Coniineniorative Meeting of Apiil 2Gtli, 
1803, whose proceedings, witii Lctteis and Sketches, are pnh- 
lished in the fullowiiig [lages, was originally designed to he of 
chiefly local concern, having its place in a general conrse of 
lectnres for the earlier part of the year, nnder the anspices of the 
Danvers Histo.rical Societ}'. The deepening and widening interest 
that was felt in it, how(»vcr, soon led to larger plans, and hence 
the more pnl)lic character which the occasion finally assumed. 
Circulars of invitation were sent to hundreds of friends, scattered 
through various New England and other states, who were known 
to have been specially identified or in sympathy- with tlie great 
movement for emancipation, l>nt particularly, so far as theii' 
names and addresses could be ascertained, to those among the 
living who were earliest and most earue.stl}- devoted to the cause. 
The favoral)le resi)onses that came from all quarters were as 
prompt and numerous as they were hearty and gratifying, and the 
result was a Reunion that witnes^^ed the presence of a sui'iirisingly 
large numlier of nieml)ers of the Aliolition j)arties and organiza- 
tions of former days, some of whom were among the most 
consi)icuous and distinguished advocates of freed<jin for tlie shi\c 
a half centur}' or more ago. It was a uiost impi-essive asseudilage 
of the veterans ; and those of the audience who had not shared 
in the labors oi- participated in the scenes of the momentous 
struggle, had a rare oi>portunity of seeing and hearing men and 
women who had l)een among the foremost in the fight and whose 
names will not be lost to the coming generations. Whoever of 
the throng had attended the memorable Anti-Slavery meetings ot 
forty or fifty yeai-s before, could but have ])een struck with the 
remarkabh; I'eprodiiction or renewal, now, of their esseijlial spiiil. 
their salient features, and their peculiar charactei-istics and con- 



^•oniitants. A whole generation had elapsed from the time when 
ihc tinal victory was won, bnt here again were the old voices in both 
-speech and song, the same old battle words and love of truth and 
jnstice, and the same unconventional ways, free and indei)endent 
spirit, and intense interest and enthusiasm, with which some of 
4IS were familiar in the days when the strife was hottest and when 
the veterans knew so well how to do and dare for the right. But 
for the absence of all signs of angry dissent or violent oppo- 
sition, one might almost have fancied himself transported back to 
the abolition meetings of the long ago which were so full of |)ur- 
pose, eloquence antl life as to make well nigh all others seem 
tame and meaningless in comparison. 

The Anti-.Slavery enterprise, in its whole inception and aim, 
5ts progress and development, and its ultimate success, was, as 
iias often and truly been said, one of the grandest moral move- 
anents in the centuries ; and in view of the fact that it belongs to 
Jthe history of our own country, while its effects and influences 
a-each out, more and more, far beyond our territorial limits, it 
would seem that here indeed is a matter for inquiry and consider- 
titiou on the part of such of our American societies as profess to 
8je, or are supposed to be, devoted to the study of the past, how- 
4iver little, as yet, they have given their attention to it. No 
-•subject, no event, no epoch, no chapter of our national annals, 
-can more properly claim their thought and research, and none 
<'au more abundantly reward investigation. But especially desir- 
.-jble and important is it, to gather iq) the necessary materials for 
the story, while so many of the real actors in the drama still sur- 
vive and are able to give their testimony and relate Iheir personal 
4'xperience or recollections in relation to it. Such contributions 
-ue of exceptional and incalculable value. In the not distant 
future they may not be given as now, and it is plainly the duty 
of our societies, large or small, older or younger, to do what they 
<-an and may to procure and put on record facts or memories of 
the c<^nflict which are more or less likely to be forgotten or 
neglected, but which should be made to live and fullll their a[)pro- 
2)riate ministry. The Danvers meeting, while of course it re- 
Jjearscd much that was already well known, had also the merit or 



distinetion of eliciting imicli that was fresii uiul new, and tluis of 
helping, in some humble way, to the desired result. Many of 
those who were tliere, thirty yeai's after the Proclamation of Eman- 
cipation by President Lincoln, must have realized that they were 
gaining some better view and sense of the nature of slavery and 
of the power that contended against it and brought it to destruc- 
tion, than they had had before they came together. Nor was the 
meeting less lielpful to this end because it was so free and popu- 
lar in its spirit and al»ouuded S(i much in personal allusions and 
remembrances and eai-nest sentiment and feeling, instead of 
being occupied with some formal and labored historical ui- 
pliilosopliical disquisition on the genei'al subject. It answered its 
purpose best, because it was so vivid a life-pictaie of what it 
sought to recall and commemorate. As such, it was a true and 
genuine study of history itself. 

Nor this alone. It was marked l)y moral lessons of the 
iiighest import and value. As there has l)een no greater service 
of man and God in our age than that which broke the 
chains of the three millions of our oppressed and degraded 
fellow-beings in the South, clothed them with the rights and 
immunities of Ameilcan citizenship and made the nation free 
ill fact as it was in name, so it was now seen, anew, what a noble 
thing it is for souls to consecrate themselves to a righteous cause 
and live for others; and it was seen, once more, that such devo- 
tit^u or work is never in vain, that no enmities or hostilities can 
avail to defeat it, that God is in it, and that in his own good time 
it shall vindicate itself and gloiiously triunijih. It was worth the 
while, for young and for old. to see and hear the confessors wh(» 
had so loved the truth and who had so loved lil)erty tV)r all, whose 
faith had known no fear and whose word had not been silencei^l, 
who had bravely met the frowns and jeers and persecutions of 
the world, and had still toiled on in trust and hope, and conquered 
at last. Wiiile the many were in quest of money, or i)leasure, or 
ottice, or i)()i)ularity, or power, or fame, these were willing to Ite 
poor, to forego tlu' usually coveted i)rivileges and delights of life, 
and to be of no I'eputation, yes, even to suffer, and if need were, 
to die, if only ihi'ough their lal»ors and strijies and sacrifices some 



comfort or delivenmce might come to the trampled and the weaij 
ones. Object lessons they were and are, to nispire men with 
more faith in the power of truth, and with increased zeal for pei- 
soual excellence and for the universal weal. It is these and such 
as these, who have made it easier for others to believe and not to 
doubt, to hold to the right against wluxtever odds, to keep in sight 
the lofty ideals and to obey the heavenly vision, and still to press 
on until the cross is exchanged for the crowni. It was good to be 
there, at the commemoration scene ; and the eager and unflagging 
attention of the audience to all that was said, and the vehement 
and prolonged applause which followed Mr. Garrison's very able 
and fine address and all the speeches that succeeded it, as well as 
Mr. Bartlett's poem and the songs of the Ilutchinsous, showed 
how deeply their hearers entered into the the spirit of the occasion, 
and how well they seemed to take to heart the moral instruction 
and incentives of the hour. 

And it was meet that such a Reunion sliould take place in 
^anvers itself. The old town was one of the early centres of 
earnest and active anti-slavery sentiment, and it lost none of its 
interest in the work of reform in subsequent times, but steadil}'' 
and progressively gave its voice and vote in its behalf in the 
later days of the Free-Soil and early Republican parties. Not 
long after Mr. Garrison entered upon his great crusade, he found 
here, in the South I'arish (now Peabody), as well as in the North, 
a respectable number of warm-hearted friends and sympathizers, 
most <'f whom continued to the last to give him their strong sup- 
port, while some of them eventually connected themselves with 
l)olitical parties, the better to compass the object in view. 'J"he 
earliest distinct trace of them in South Danvers takes us back to 
the year 1831, when Isaac Winslow and his familj', from Maine, 
Avere residing there, and when Joseph Southwick (one of the dele- 
gates to the Philadelphia Convention that founded the American 
Anti-Slavery Society uf 1833) came with his family from the 
same State to reside with them, the two Quaker fami'"es being 
closely related to each other by marriage, and the Southwicks 
being descended from settlers in Danvers of about two hundred 
years before. Additional information concerning this interesting 



circle of Friends is given in the address and sketch of Miss Sninh 
H. fSonthwiek, as pnblished in sulisequent pages. T<igotlu r llicy 
attended anti-shwery meetings and fairs in Boston, and «■(>ll^li- 
tnted a nncleiis of aljolitionisni in the i»lace where they lixcd. 
The Sontlnvicks, iiaving remained in Danvers lint for a ^ii glc 
year. — tliongh Miss Soiitliwiek sonu>where refers to a sulisi (jiK'i.t 
residence of three years (1.S53-5G) in the same village, — icuiovcd 
to the city in 1835, yet still continued their devotion to the c;ins>! 
in (^ompany with the Winslows. It was doubtless in the soiitluMii 
l»art of the town that was formed, April 7th, 1<S37. a "■ Dniivcis 
Fi'male Ar.ti-SlaveiT Society," of which Mrs. Isaac Winslow w.is 
chosen the President ; Mrs. Kichard Loring, ^'ice-Presi(lellt ; 
Miss Harriet N. Webster, Corresponding Secretary ; Miss Emily 
Winslow, daughter of Isaac Winslow, (Mrs. Emily W. Taylor, 
now of Germantown, Pa.), Kecording Secretary, and Mrs. Elijah 
lil)ton. Treasurer; with Mrs. Eben Upton, Mrs. Amos Osborn, 
Mrs. Benjamin Hill, Mrs. Charles Northend, JMrs. Alxd Nichols, 
and Mis. John Morrison, as Councillors. The Society was evi- 
<lently meant for the whole town and pi'obably its sixty memliers 
represented the North Parish as well as the South. Mrs. Abel 
Nichols, not to mention others, was of North Danvers, and she 
and hei- husband were among the best of abolitionists. Their 
daughter, the late Mrs. Eben G. Berry, recalled with what fear 
and trembling she was wont, as a young girl, to circulate anti- 
slavery documents, and their nephew, Mr, Andrew Nichols, now 
of Danvers, son of Dr. Andrew Nichols, remembers how he used 
to be stoned in the streets for procuring subscribers to anti-slavery 
papers. But among the men of the place who were earnest for 
emanciiiation, there were — besides Isaac Winslow and Joseph 
Sonthwick — Mr . Abner Sanger, whom Ficderick Douglass so 
<leservedly honors in his elocpient letter; Eli F. Buridiam, Amasa 
P. Blake* and Andrew Porter; and Dr. Andrew Nichols and 
Alonzo P. Phillips, both of whom were of the highest character 
and came to be prominent and influential memliers of the Liberty 
party. Some or all of these men, year after year, arranged for 

* Mr. Amasa P. Blake <'ie(l while these paj^es liave been hi press, 
Sept. 5, 18:);^. at alxjut the a.iie of seventy. He was a native of Sliellielcl, 
Vt., and came to Danvers al)out fortv-tive vears aito. 



evening meetings or Sunday afternoon lectures, secured the ser- 
vices of gifted and favorite speakers from abroad, and so i<ei>t 
the fires of freedom l)rightly burning in that neighborhood. 

North Danvers, or banvers as it now is, was still more, per- 
haps, a theatre of zealous and determined propagandism. About 
the time when the Winslows and the Southwicks first appeared in 
South Danvers in 1H33-34, there seems to have existed liere some 
kind of an association ot anti-slavery friends (of which, however, 
no record is known to have been preserved) at ''The Neck," or 
"New Mills," later known as Danversport. — having for its mem- 
bers, Jesse V. Ilariimau, Kichard Hood, John Hood. Joseph 
Merrill, Hatliorne Porter, Alfred K. Porter, John Cutler, William 
Endicott, James D. Black, William Francis, Henry A. I 'otter. 
Rev. Samuel Brimblecom, John 11. Patten, Dr. Kltenezer Hunt. 
William Alley, Job Tyler, and Hercules Johnson, and [)()ssil)ly 
some other gentlemen, assisted and encouraged as they all were 
by good and faithful women, most of wdioin were of the same 
names and families, yet others of whom were such true friends of 
the cause as Mrs. Rachel Kenney, Miss E. H. Kenne}', (afterward 
Mrs. Joseph Merrill), Miss Irene Kent, Miss Susan Hutchinson, 
and Miss E. H. Hutchinson, subsequently the Secretary of the 
Essex County Anti-Slavery Society. Oyly two of the men, whose 
names have been given in the list, still survive : — Henry A. Potter, 
now of Marblehead, and William Alley, now of Marlboro'. The 
latter, alone, was present at the commemorative meeting, occupy- 
ing a seat on the platform. Mrs. John Cutler was also present, 
from Peal>ody. INIis James D. Black, who new lives at Law- 
rence, was unable to attend. Mrs. William Endicott was living 
in Danvers at the time, but in her greatly enfeebled condition she 
could ill understand the nature of the occasion, and she has 
since died. We are not aware that others of the wives of the 
original members of the Society of 18;};3. tlieniselves all devotetl 
to the anti-slavery cause with theii' husbands, were among the 
living on the 2Gth of April last. The widow of Dr. Hunt — that 
able and staunch Aliolitiouist who was at one lime tlu' candidate 
of the Liberty Party for Lieutenant Govt-rnor of Massachusetts — 
had, like himself, been previously married. SIk- became his wife 



in 18-14, :iii(l tlu-ii- only child is tlu- present Secii-'taiy of the Ilis- 
toricjil Society. A daughter of .lohn I'Mge, K!^(l., of Dan vers, 
Mrs. limit is lenienihered as having been from early life, not only 
a remarkably luight and interesting lady, hut a vvarm friend of 
the slave :ind an etlicient promoter of every henevolent work. 
.She is said to li:i\e been one of the lirst two subscribei's in the 
town foi' the JJIienitvr. Col. Jesse l*utnam, long since deceased, 
being the other. She and her husband welcomed to their home, 
and lu'arts and liel|»ful hands the fugitives from oppression. She 
still survives, Itut like Mis. Kndicott, she was unable, by reason 
of the iiiHrmities of age, to recall, at the time of the Commemo- 
ration, the oUl jinti-slaverv days when she gave the rare beauty 
and strength aii<l grace of her womanhood to the service of the 
[toor and the wionged. It is such facts as these that impress us 
deeply with a sense of the fast iliminisliing ranks of the true and 
the faithful, and of the sure receding of the great drama and all 
who shared its fortunes into the calm and changeless realm of 
history. 

It was [)erhaps a short time previous to 183:^-4, that Oliver 
Johnson came to the town to deliver in the vestry of the First 
Church, of which Kev. Milton 1'. Braman, I). I)., was the 
minister, what was probably the earliest Anti-Slavery lecture ever 
given in Danvers, a principal object of which was to combat the 
Colonization scheme which Mr. Garrison, in 1832, had m^'rcilessly 
attacked and exposed, in a well-known pamphlet publication on 
the subject. It was probably in the year 183.3. possibly 1834, 
that the writer of these pages, then aliout the age of seven, had 
the good f(Mtune to hear, in the Baptist Chuivh at "-The Neck," 
an eloquent Fourth of July Anti-Slavery oration by James D. 
Black, who was at the time but nineteen or twenty years old. 
We well recall the earnestness and vigor of that excellent address, 
and the young man who delivere<l it, bright and gifted as he was, 
lived to be, not only one of the leading Abolitionists of the town 
lint also, in other ways, one of its most useful and honored 
citizens, whatever the injustice he suffere<l during his life. It has 
often been said of him that " he was the best mo<lerator of the 
town meetings Danvers has ever known." Although Air. Torter 



XIV 

has not iueluded him in his list of the "Seven Stars," yet, 

whether that designation was nieajit to express a certain definite 

number or not, our impression is that he really belonged to the 

p-alaxy, as he certainly deserved the honor. It was in 1834, also, 

that Rev. Cyrus P. Grosveaor,* an early and devoted champion 

of freedom, who should not l)e forgotten, came from Salem, 

where he was then settled, and likewise gave an Anti-Slavery 

address iu the Baptist Church. In the same edifice, in 1835, a 

laro-e number of people were privileged to hear the celebrated 

George Thompson of England. And in 1837, we learn from an 

old printed programme of the time, there was a Celebration of the 

Fourth of July by the " Danvers Anti-Slavery Society," Rev. 

Samuel Brimblecom being the orator of the day, and Alfred R. 

Porter the poet, both of them members. 

The seed thus sown, took root aud grew. From what soon 

took place, it is evident that the cause was gaining new friends 

and fresh strength. On the 2Gth of August, 1838, a meeting was 

held in the Universalist Church at the "Neck," at which steps, 

*The name of this early and emineut Anti-Slavery clergyman meets 
us often in the history of tlie L'reat striiL'gle. While writing, in 1879, a 
.seiies of articles about Abolitionism iu Dauvers for the Danvers Mirror, 
I gathered from the late Dr. Henry Wheatiaiul, President of the Essex 
lustitute, some particulars couceniing him, wliich may be of interest iu 
this connection. He was a son of Kev. Daniel Grosvenor, who was born 
iu Pomlret, Coun., April 20, 1750. and who. haviug graduated at Yale iu 
17fi!). was settled successively at Grafton, Paxtou, aud Petersham, Mass. 
The sou, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor, was born at Petersham. He graduated 
at Dartmouth College in 1818, afterward studied at the Princeton The- 
ological vSeminary, and was still biter a Baptist minister at New Haven, 
Conn., 1825-2G, at Boston, 1826-30, and at Salem, Mass., 1830-34. It was 
while he was at Salem, that the Essex County Anti-Slavery Societ}' was 
organized iu his own parlor, about ten or twelve persons being present. 
He was at Sterling iu 1887, and subsequently he was President of Central 
College, at McGrawsville, Cortland County, N. Y. While at McGraws- 
ville, he was Corresponding Secretary, says William Goodell's very 
\a.\v\Ah\{i lUstorti of Slarcnj and Anti-iSlavfry, of the Ame lean Baptist 
Free Mission Society, which admitted no slave iiolding members ant' 
recognized no distinction founded ou color. Said Dr. Wht-atland: "He 
was a man of flue talents and scholarship and of unusual ability in the 
pulpit. He was decided and radical, but sincere, devout, and conscien- 
tious." He appears to have been foremost iu really setting the Anti- 
Slavery ball iu motion in Salem and Essex ('ouuty. Subsetiu-^ntly he 
joined the Liberty Party. The Salmi Register, of Mar. 3, ls7!), had the 
following: " llt-v. Cyrus P, Grosvenor, LL. D., died recently at Albion, 
Michigan, aged 86 years." 

A. P. P. 



svere taken for reorganization, and Joseph IMerrill, Tlionias 
Bowen, and John R. Langley, were appointed a committee to 
diaft a constitntion for what was now to be ''The Yonng Men's 
Anti-Shivery Society." The report of the committee having 
heen presented and adoi)ted on the following Tnesday, Rev. 
Samnel Brimblecom, the minister of the Universalist Church, was 
chosen Presiient, (William Endicott being elected as his successor 
ii year later), John R. Langley, Secretary, and Joseph Merrill, 
Treasurer. The list of meml)ers at once became enlarged, and 
included, not only the names already given as belonging to the 
earlier and less compact and efficient association, but also these : 
Thomas Bowen, John R. Langley, Jonathan Richardson, James 
F. INIcIutire, Moses Black, Jr., P^lias Savage, John D. Andrews, 
James M. Usher, Charles W. Page, John Hines, Oliver G. Wait, 
James Kelley, Archelaus P. Black, Winthrop Andrews, Geoige 
Kate, Joseph W. Legro, Benjamin Potter, Ingalls K. Mclntire, 
Daniel Woodbury, Josiah Ross, Edward Stimpson, Jonathan 
Eveleth, Charles Benjamin, Samuel P. Fowler, Oliver O. Brown, 
Alexander A. Leavitt, William Needham, Elbridge G. Little, Jra 
P. Clough, Abuer S. Mead, and Joseph Porter. Of the mem- 
Iiers of this new or reorganized society of 1838, as mentioned in 
the above two lists, oul}' nine were living at the time of the 
Commeinoiative meeting; William Alley and Henr}' A. Pottei', 
who, as stated above, also belonged to the eai'lier society ; J. R. 
Langley, J. W. Legro, Winthro[) Andrews, and A. S. Mead, all 
f>till of Danvers; and Daniel Woodbury, Jonathan Richardson 
and Jonathan Eveleth, of^Peabod}', Essex and IJeverly, respectively. 
Messrs. Langley, Andiews, Mead, Richaidson and Eveleth, were 
present at the Reuni(ni, Mr, Andrews and_Mr. Mead occupying seats 
on the platform, with Mr. David Mead (a brother of Abner), who is 
iitill a resident of Danvers, and like his fiiend, Parker Pillsbury, 
is 84 3'ears of age, and who, though his name does not ap[)ear in 
i-ither of the lists, was ever a most decided and uncompromising 
Abolitionist. All the other meml)crs of the Society — there were 
forty-eight in all — are, it is believed, numbered with the dead. 
Some of them were variously represented at the Commemorative 
Keunioa l>y wives and children : — Ilathorne Porter by his sons 



Frederic (of Salem) niul Aaron ; .Toliii C'ntlei' aixl Moses IJlack 
}»y their widows, Mrs. M. M. Cutler of Tealtody, and Mrs. 
Harriet N. Black of Danvcrs ; William Kiidicott l»y his daughter, 
IMrs. Henry G. Hyde; John Hines by his son, Ezra D. Hines, 
Esq., histoiian of the Historical Society ; Samuel 1*. Fowler by 
his daughter, Mrs. Clara F. Dubois ; Dr. Ebenezer Hunt by his 
daughters, Katharine E. and Sarah E. Hunt ; and doubtless there 
were others, the surviving members of whose families were 
present at the meeting. 

I>ut how w'iW these young men of Danvers, back there in 
1S38, graspi- 1 t'le situation and d 'dicated themselves to the sacred 
cause of Libel ty, when to do it was, to say the least, a sacrifice 
of social consideration and popular favor, appears in the language 
of the Treamltle of their Constitution and in the various Resolu- 
tions which their society adopted. Says the Preamble : " Whereas, 
it is established by evidence and facts beyond all doubt, that 
Aineiican Slavery is a system wholly oi)posed to all natural rights 
and completely at war with the Christian Religion, and as such 
should be iiniuediately abolished, we, the undersigned, do adopt 
the following constitution." And here, also, is one of their 
earliest declarations : " Resolved^ that, whereas some millions of 
our brethren are held in bondage, are deprived of all their rights, 
political, civil, and religious, and are crushed to the level of the 
brutes, therefore we, as abolitionists, aim not only at their eman- 
cipation, but to restore them to their proper place in the scale of 
moral beings, which CJod has designed them to enjoy." And 
still again: " Hesoltmf, that professing ministers of the Gos- 
pel who acknowledge Slavery to be a sin against God, but 
who neglect to lift up their voices against it, or to exert them- 
selves in any way for its abolition, give the public strong reasons 
to regard them as time-serving men and unworthy of the con- 
fidence usually reposed in them." 

All honor to those who thus, at the outset, bore their fearless 
testimony to the truth, and gave the strength, the freshness, the 
dew, of their youthful manhood to the service of the slave, nor 
counted the cost. They well deserve to be gratefully remembered. 
Possibly a few of them were destined, sooner or later, to fall back 



from tlu'ir Iiigli moral vanta;j,L' ground into old polilical ii'lations 
witli the \Vliig and Democratic parties of the time, in liie vain 
and deUisive hope that through one or the other of these instru- 
mentalities the evil of slavery might most surely, however grad- 
ually, be mitigated, or removed. Others of them, like Dr. Hunt, 
Elias Savage and Winthrop Andrews, were to join the Liberty 
T'arty as the most direct ai,d effective way in which the land 
might I»e redeemed from its curse and shame, while they would 
still hoUl to the Church, and make it the Bulwark of Freedom 
instead of the Bulwaik of Slaver}', as many deemed it to be. 
Associated with them in this attitude and action, were such men 
as Dea. Frederick Howe, Col. Jesse Putnam, John A. Learoytl 
and I'eter Wait; and, in subsecpient years, Allen Knight, Francis 
r. Putnam, Elias E. I'utnain, Alfred Fellows, and others — all of 
whom, with their co-workers previously mentioned, were among 
the truest Anti-Slavery men in Danvers. Hut a large proportion 
of the later Society, and a still greater proportion of the earlier, 
were more and more persuaded that the church was irretrieval)ly 
given over to complicity with the sin and iniquity of the Slave 
I'ower, and that to remain in connection with it under Buch 
circumstances would be to partake of its wickedness and guilt ; 
while at the same time they regarded the Union and the Civil 
Government of the countiy as likewise the monstrous oppressor 
and enemy of the manacled and down-trodden captive, and there- 
fore the exercise of the usual functions and privileges of citizen- 
ship under such a political system as a countenance and support 
to it, and consequently as wrong and inexcusable. Hence they 
withdrew from the church, declined to vote at the |)olls as they 
would also have refused to hold otliccs and disowned the Union 
and advocated its dissolution as a solemn daty and as the best 
means of setting at libeity the objects of their pity and compas- 
sion. They were " Comeouterx.'" Yet it was seen by others 
that one could not well live under such a political rule at all, 
could not at all remain iu such a country and enjoy the ordinary 
intercourse of society and the manifold safeguards, opportunitit's 
and blessings which its laws madi' a common lot for the millions, 
witl.iDut his being in some monsuie a party to the very Power that 



xvm 

was called in question and defied. Absolute freedom from all 
entanglements would require self-expatriation. To pay laxes, to 
make use of the post-office, to buy and own and sell, to ride on 
the railroads, to share the general protection of courts, or of 
municipal or state or national enactments or api)ointmeuts, waste 
acknowledge and respect the central and supreme authority, 
without which chaos would come again, — quite as much as if one 
should cast his ballot, or be a constal)le or congressman. 

Yet the class of abolitionists to whom we refer were most 
conscientious in their action, and were as consistent as circum- 
stances would allow, while virtually accepting the situation and 
living still under a government which they protested against and 
abjured. One can but greatly admire their high moral standard, 
their strenuous effort to free themselves from all resi)onsibility 
for slavery in whatever waj', and their willingness and readiness 
to bear whatever it might cost them to be faithful to their own 
honest convictions. And the cost was great. It was not without 
struggle or sorrow that they disowned the grand bequest of the 
fathers of the Republic, or renounced the church in which they 
were born and reared, however wicked or corrupt one or the other 
might be. Many of them were chnrch-members, long and 
devotedly attached to the observances and sanctities that properly 
belonged to it ; and they left it, not because they no longer 
believed in Christianity or could no longer engage in its appro- 
priate forms of worship and communion, but because of the very 
strength and siucerit}' of their faith in it as such a pure and divine 
revelation and reality, that it must never suffer stain or profana- 
tion through the acts or words of its friends and adherents in 
excusing, or defending, or aiding, or encouraging gigantic crimes 
and the perpetrators of deeds of darkness. They were ridiculed 
and anathematized for it, but here they took their stand, and it 
must be acknowleged that it was lofty ground, however others 
might have deemed it the part of wisdom and duty to still abide 
in the Church, as well as in the Union, and tight the battle there, 
until each and both were " without spot or wrinkle or any such 
thing." And these men practically illustrated, in tiieir character 
and daily life, the pure principles which they would faiu make the 



liiw of the hind. Most of them were of humble pursuits and 
cu'cumstauces. They were tanners, and curriers, and shoemakers, 
and artisans, and tillers of the soil, yet were they possessed of a 
high degree of intelligence, even as they were surpassed by none 
of their neighbors in their reverence for God and his Christ and 
in their aim and effort to do the will of heaven, while the work 
upon which they entered and which so fully enlisted their sympa- 
thy and commanded their faculties and energies, had a wonderful 
effect in educating them, in developing their mental and moral 
powers, and in making them the bringers of light and life to 
others. They held frequent meetings for talks, discussions, and 
lectures. They attended conventions, far and near. They read 
the Anti-Slavery literature, circulated papers and tracts, and 
wrote for the Ziiherxitor and the Herald of Freedom. They 
welcomed to their homes the Abolition orators, that the people 
might hear them tell, in church, or hall, or schoolhouse, the story 
of them that were in l)onds and the one duty of the hour, paying 
out of their own scant earnings the too meagre expenses. I well 
remember hearing, as a lad, a talk from that sterling, indefatiga- 
ble Quaker abolitionist, Benjamin Lundy, precursor of Garrison, 
as, after his patient and self-denying labors in the cause through- 
out the country for moj-e than twenty years, he made a visit to 
IJanvers (it could not have been long before his death at Lowell, 
111., in 183'J) and discoursed one evening to a few friends in the 
old schoolhouse at " The Neck." But there came from time to 
time, and again and again. Garrison, Phillips, Pillsbury, and 
Douglass themselves, with Stephen S. Foster and Abby Kelly, 
Sarah and Angelina Grimke, Nathaniel P. Rogers, Henry C. 
AV light, Charles Lennox Remond, Lucy Stone, Thomas Parnell 
Beach, Sojourner Truth, George Bradburn, and indeed well nigh 
all the abler and more eff'ective speakers of the old-line Abolition 
l)arty whom the people would throng most to hear. Richard 
Hood (Mr. Hood was most prominent in arranging for all these 
occasions, and both he and Harriman suffered imprisonment on 
account of their anti-slavery princii)les and activities), Harriman, 
Merrill, and the rest, rendered no small service to the town in 
bringing to it such visitoi's and voices as these, as an inspiration 



(»f lilievty and life to its citizens, and as a contribution to its 
histoiy wliicli it will more antl moie be glad to remember and 
record. The cause nowhere had more constant and faithful 
servants than these men and their immediate associates. Mas- 
tered by one great idea, or purpose, so far as they could consist- 
ently with their secular avocations, they gave to it their time, 
their thougiit, their strength, their means, their life, in full and 
glad surrender. They lvei)t the community astir. They made 
the peo|)le think and talk. The}^ were moral agitators. There 
was no peace for the pro-slavery churches and political parties, 
and tliere were not wanting occasions when some of the more 
fiery spiiits from abroad, like Foster and Beach and Maria French, 
seized with a consuming sense of the awful sin of slavery and 
feeling that the apathy of professing Christians and of the people 
generally was, to use the fit and forcible language of Mr. Garri- 
son, "enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to 
hasten the i-esurrection of the dead," — invaded Sunday congrega- 
tions in the hours of public worship), interrupted their services, 
rebuked them for their unfaithfulness, and threw them into inde- 
scribable confusion ; — a method of warfare which, it should ])e 
said, the editor of the Liberator^ with most of his noted associates 
and the great inass of the Abolitionists, did not approve, albeit 
many of them were inclined to excuse it. But however excusable 
the procedure under the un^jrecedented provocations which 
prompted it, it was plainly a violation of the letter and spirit of 
the law, and of the sacred and inherent right of all men, or bodies 
of nien, peaceably to assemble themselves together and worship 
(iod in their own chosen way, or according to the dictates of their 
own consciences, with none to molest them or make them afraid, 
so long as they respect the public order and trespass not upon the 
common privileges and interests of their neighbors or of society. 
It was an essential right which the Abolitionists justly claimed 
for themselves, and never more than when their meetings were 
broken up by pro-slavery mobs or myrmidons. 

Like all earnest reformers from time immemorial, who have 
been on fire for truth or right and who have been called to wage 
heroic warfare against the colossal sins and errors of their age, 



the (!:inisoui;iii i»arty, so well representetl hy the Danvcrs fricmls 
we have referred to, were not seldom betra3-ed into varions indis. 
cretions and excesses which were but natural, if not inevitable. 
In such conlliets with intrenched and terrible wrong and injustice, 
brave soldiers of freedom cannot always deliberately weigh their 
words or carefully stud}^ propriety of action. Blows must rain 
thick, ftist and heavy, and, as Edmund Burke said, Something 
must be pardoned to the spirit of liberty. The Abolitionists 
would themselves be the last to claim perfection and they have 
quite enough without the award. Yet even their faults or errors 
were not wholly without extenuation. If at times they vvere too 
indiscriminate and sweeping ia their denunciations of chui'ch and 
clergy, and of political leaders and parties, and seemed to forget 
that there Mere amongst them thousands and thousands of true 
anti-slavery men and women, it must not be forgotten how furiously 
such organizations, or representatives of [)ublic opinion, de- 
nounced these friends of emauciiiation, and visited them with 
evei'y vile epithet and every maik of piosciiittion and disgrace, 
and how many of tin; best of such bodies and classes, by reason 
of tlieir atHIiations, were prone to disappoint expectations of their 
fidelity to freedom and to jeoijaidi/.c its sacred interests, and 
therefore needed constant watch and warning. And if it shall be 
said that they were narrow and exclusive in spirit, indulging the 
fond conceit that only those who walked with them or stood on 
their particular platform could l)e counted as genuine Abolition- 
ists, and not realizing how dilHcult it w\as, for those who dissented 
from the disunion, non-voting, anti-church, and other theories, 
which they connected with their anti-slavery gos[)el, to work with 
them and so share with them the general responsibility, — it must 
be remembered, also, tluit not a little of this lack of co-operation 
was largely due to the mei-e fact that lierc was a despised, unpop- 
ular and persecuted band of reformers ; that much which the 
abolitionists associated with their ai)peals for the slave and which 
others than themselves then regarded as so irrelevant, is now seen 
to have been logically deducible from their fundamental principle ; 
and that one, at least, of the proposed and related, but obnoxious 
measures, is now marching on to assured victory. So that, with 



reference to more tluin one of the reform movements whieli were 
urged I»y tlie Garrisonians, it may justly be said that the hxtter 
were not so much in the wrong in their attitude and teaching and 
work, as the}' were simply in advance of their time. Even with 
regard t(j their advocacy of the dissolution of the Union, if the 
impious and enormous plans and schemes of the ISoutii had still 
gone on unchecked, and it had been indisputably evident to the 
masses that ours was a nation that was in danger of soon becom- 
ing permanentl}' the one great slave-holding empire of all history, 
their platform would have been crowded indeed, and millions 
instead of huncb-eds or thousands would, in due time, have joined 
their ranks and demanded the annulment of the covenant. God 
meant it otherwise and kept North and South together, that in 
the death-grapple of Freedom with Slavery, the Right should pre- 
vail and the Wrong should perish forever. The Union which 
many thought was the sure Fortress and Strength of Slavery, 
pi'oved to l)e its sure Destruction. 

The future will make snudl account of an}' shortc(jmings 
which men may see in the old Abolitionists. It is their everlasting 
honor that, at tlie time when milliuiis of our fellow-creatures vvei'c 
groaning under insutfeiable bondage within our borders, and 
church, state, and people were alike deaf to their cries and were 
devoted to sellish gain and pride and fashion and pleasure, they 
wrre the llrst and foremost, as a class, to see the dreadful natui'c 
of slaverv, t(j call the nation to repent and do works meet for 
repentance, and to rouse the public to a sense of its duty and to 
the needed action, giving themselves no rest until the beginning 
of the end had come. In an age of moral blincbiess and obliquity, 
of base compromises with the eternal riglit and of general world- 
liness and sin, they kept themselves pui'c and free from the evil, 
and maintained the highest character for strictness and even 
sternness of personal rectitude, whatever the exceptions. Their 
mission, their warfare, was a moral one. Their one supreme 
object was inunediate and universal emancipation ; ami to agitate 
and still to agitate the subject, and, in the service and for the sake 
of it, boldly to face and liravely endure the mockings and ciuel- 
ties of their guilty countrymen, until their work was accomplished, 



XXlll 

or until otluTs slioiild ciitci- into it mikI coiniilctr it. w:is tlir l;isk 
wiiicii in tlic i)i<i\iiU'iic(' of (it)(l was :issi<:nc'il tlicm, and to wliicli 
tliey were faillirnl unto the imuI. It was iiot llu'iis inclccd to 
fnllil it. Otiicrs were to take it up and carry it on to tiinnipli. 
To these, as well, iK'loniis the mt-ed of i)iaise. A\'itiiout them, 
shiveiT. so far as human vision uiiuht foresee, wouhl not have 
been alxjiished. ISut the animatin<2; piiiicii)le of their liighest 
endeavor and tiieir eiownint;' achievement came from those who 
liad wron<;ht before theili, and without wliom, also, Freedom had 
never won the victory, 'i'hese were they who inaugurated the 
onter[)rise and bieathed into it the breath of life, and hcjwever 
they might disapprove the methods of their successors, oi- however 
justly they might not hold themsi-lves ifsponsible for the conse- 
(luenccs of their own honest words or deeds, yet all the same is it 
ti'ue, that the great originrd and solenui declaration of their pur- 
pose and pi'inciples, to which they so steadfastly adhered, meant 
and necessitated the Liberty and Fi'ce-Soil and I\e[)ublican Par- 
ties, with Joslma K (iiddings and John V. Hale, C'hailes Sunnier 
and Abraham Lincoln, ( Jrant, Sheiman, Sheriihin and Farragut ; 
and forts and iron-clad^, and armies and navi's and battles. 
Garrison might well ha\ i' said, with the Keformer of reformers, 
" I came not to send peace, but a sword." Peace would come at 
last, but only through war and agony. The great work of the 
Abolitionists is seen, not alone in their own immediate labors, 
but also, and not the K-ss, in the service of those who finally 
struck off the chains of the enslaved and 'made them fi-ee indeed ; 
and again the Scripture was verified : — '•'• And these all, having 
obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, 
God having provided some better thing for us, that the}' without 
us should not be made perfect." They have renewed or i)crpet- 
uated the line of the early Christians and martyr spirits of whom 
the author of the Epistle wr(»te, and " of whom the world was not 
worthy." A "• I'"ree-Soiler from the stai't," and still holding as 
aforetime to the L'nion as to the (hni'ch, we nevertheless acknowl- 
edge that not in Amei'ican history has there been another con- 
spicuous exemi)lilication of such tine Apostolic faitii and practical 
Chribtiauity as theirs ; none which we believe will shine with such 



briglitfiiing lustre in tin- roi-onls of our past. Wliati'vor chnngc 
of religious oi)iniou or feelhig ail}' of theui may have coine to share 
with others, in more recent years of such marked and general 
drift in the theological world as we have all w^itnessed, no fouler 
injustice could be done them than to say that in the course of 
their anti-slavery service they were inimical to the Bible, or to 
" the Way, the Truth, and the Life" whom it reveals. Garrison 

himself said " Take away the Bible, and our warfare with 

oppression, and infidelity, and iiitem[)erance, and impurity, and 
crime, is at an end ; our weapons are wrested awa3\ our founda- 
tion is removed; we have no authority to speak, and no courage 
to act." As with the leadei', so with his associates, AVe our- 
selves heard them all, from childhood up, and we never knew 
preachers who seemed more familiar with the Book of books, who 
had its truths and lessons more complctt'ly or readily at their 
corwmand, or who more constantly, ai»tly, or powerfully applied 
them to the sins and the sinners of their day. Their appeal yvas 
ever to the spirit, the mind, the word, the example of the Christ, 
as if they knew for a certainty that, once His law of love and life 
should rule the souls of men, every fetter would break and every 
slave would be free. And who like themselves, in all the land, 
when Levites passed by on the other side, were the Good Samari- 
tans to open their houses and hearts to the fugitives as they came, 
*' wet, cold and hungry," or "panting, bleeding, and gory from 
the hells of the South," and to feed and clothe, and comfort and 
protect them, and send them safely on to the one sure refuge and 
rest, defying unjust and infamous law, with all its tines and 
imprisonments? All over the North wei-e these numberless shel- 
ters of the hunted poor and friendless, and they were the homes 
of the "unbelieving" and " profane" Abolitionists ! Had Christ 
been oti the earth in those dark and i)erilons yeais. we know 
what he would have done and where he would have found his own. 
One of these days some other brilliant Macauley will take pen in 
hand and write of the Puritans of Puritans, of tiie old Anti- 
Slavery times. Meanwhile we may rejoice, indeed, that tha 
source and cause of the nation's woe and humiliation is forevei- 
of the past ; may still try to assuage the hurt of the people, of 



whatever race or color ; and while we yet remember the story and 
gather fresh materials with which to illustrate it and emphasize 
^its lessons, may more and more cultivate friendly and harmonious 
relations between all sections and classes of a once distracted and 
endangered, but now free and glorious country, to realize the 
vision of which so many of the early confessors and martyrs 
toiled and waited in faith and liope, but died without the sight. 

A. P. Putnam. 
Concord, Sept. fi. 1893. 



We give here the names of twme of the friends who were 
present at the meeting, so far as we are able to recall them. We 
would gladly have extended the list. Those who were grouped 
on the platform are mentioned in connection with the picture, 
(with the exception of one wliom we are unable to identify), 
with several others who, occupying a front seat in the audience, 
were caught una'w^ares by the photographer. Others are as 
follows : — 

Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, of Chelsea, Col. Henry Stone, of 
South Boston, Mr. and Mrs. 1). L. Bingham, of Manchester, 
George F. Allen, of Manchester, Dr. Gaston W. Fowler, of Lynn, 
Mrs. Viola H. Campbell, of Lynn, Miss Kate L. Campbell, of 
Lynn, Al)bie A. Flint, of Weymouth, Hon. and Mrs. Simeon 
Dodge, of Marblehead, Mrs. Aaron Porter, of East Alstead, N. 
H., Joseph G. Brown, of Lynn, Miss Helen Philbrick, of Salem, 
Miss Eliza Philbrick, of Salem. Mrs. Mary Philbrick Swazey, of 
Beverly. Climena Philbrick, of W. vSomerville, Hon. and Mrs. 
Abuer C. Goodell, of Salem, Emma M. Lander, of Newburyport, 
Lucian Newhall, of Lynn, p]mma D. Newhall, of Lynn, Gilbert 
L. Streeter, of Salem, William D. Thompson, of Lynn, Lucretia 
Thompson, of Lynn, Miss Mary H. Stone, of Salem, Miss 
Caroline S. Rodman, of Wellesley Hills, Lydia M. Tcnney, 
William Austin Brown, Joshua G. Dodge, of Arlington, Robert 
Adams, of Fall River, Mrs. L^jdia R. Putnam, of Boston, 
Miss Mary J. Loring, of Woburn, Dr. Mary L. Richmond, of 
Boston. Rev. O. S. Butler, of Georgetown, Miss C. D. Fales, of 



Boston, Florence M. Atkinson, of Dorchester, Joseph A. Allen, 
of Medfiekl, Rosa S. Allen, of Medfield, John Curtis, of Boston, 
Abby Allen Davis, of W. Newton, S. Elizabeth Yerrintou, of 
Chelsea, Hon. John I. Baker, of Beverly, Dora Taft Brigham, 
of Boston, Edward L. Giddings, of Beverly, Charles Woodberry, 
of Beverly, Wilbur M. Waite, of Lynn, Daniel W. Friend, of 
Manchester, Julius F. Rabardy, of Manchester, Francis J. Garri- 
son, of Boston, J. Russell May, of Boston, Mrs. Anna H. Weld, 
of Hyde Park, Louis D. H. Weld, of Hyde Park, Miss Cornelia 
A. Stickney, of Salem, Mrs. Charles Babcock, of Salem, sister of 
Charles Lennox Remond, Mrs. Mary O. Stevens, of Peabody, 
Hon. J. W. Berry, of Lynn, Miss Carrie E. Walton, of Salem, 
Miss Lucy H. P:verett, of Plainfield, N. J., Hon. and Mrs. S. H. 
Phillips, of Salem, Hon. A. A. Putnam, of Uxbridge, Mrs. 
Emily P. Reed, and daughter. Miss Anne E. Reed, of Andover, Mrs. 
Johu Cutler, of Peabody, Nathan A. Bushby, of Peabody, Jona- 
than Eveleth, of Beverly, Jonathan Richardson, of Essex, Mrs. 
W. A. Gorton, of Providence, R. I., Mrs. Hauuah Mausfield, of 
W. Peabody, Mrs. Clara Oliver, of Peabody, Mr. C. C. Alvord, 
of Philadelphia, now of Danvers, William E. Putnam, of Bos- 
ton, Miss Margaret R. Putnam, of Concord, Mass., A. J. Archer, 
of Salem, Mr. E. Kendall Jenkins, of Andover, Mr. Aaron 
Nourse and daughter, of Salem, Mr. and INIrs. Frederic Porter, 
of Salem. 

Among the friends present belonging to Danvers there 
were : — 

Rev. and '^Irs. E. C. Ewing. Hon. Alden P. White, Hon. 
aiid Mrs. Augustus JNIudgt', Mr. and Mrs. Ezra D. Hines, John 
W. Porter and son John Endicott, Mrs. Sarah P. Fuller, and her 
daughter Jessie, Miss Sarah W. Mudge, Mrs. Isadora E. Kenney, 
Miss Katharine E. Hunt, Dr. Warren Porter, Israel H. Putnam, 
Mrs. Andrew Putnam, Mrs. Ellen M. P. Gould, Mrs. Harriet N- 
Black, Mrs. Edwin Mudge, Mrs. L. P. Weston, Mrs. Lucretia D. 
Massey, Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Langley, I\Ir. and Mrs. Andrew Nich- 
ols, Mrs. John T. Ross, Mr. t^nd Mrs. Thomas T. Stone, Mr. 
and Mrs. J. C. Butler, Mr. and Mrs. 4lfred Fellows, Dr. and Mrs. 
C. W. Page, George Tapley, Miss Mary E. Kenney, Miss Oda 



Howe, Miss Margaret Howe, Mrs. Parker B. Francis, Mrs. J. 
Warreu Mead, Mrs. Annie G. Newhall, Miss Caroline B. Faxon, 
Mrs. Mary Vi. Pntuani, Miss Bessie Putnam, Horace Ross, and 
daughter Miss Mary T. Ross, Rev. J. W. Hyde, Rev. W. H. 
Trickey, Rev. Eugene DeNorraandie, Mr. and Mrs. Webster Put- 
nam, Mrs. Henry B. Learnard, Miss Alice M. Putnam, Mrs. Joel 
Kimball, Mrs. Irad Goodale, IMrs. Augustus Proctor, and her 
sister, Mrs. Mansfield, Mrs. Fanny P. Gray, Mrs. Abby J. 
Woodman and Miss Mary E. Johnson from" Oak Knoll," Charles 
H. Preston, Mrs. Clara F. Dubois, Mr. and Mrs. G. A. Tapley, 
Miss Isal)el Tapley, Mr. and Mrs. John A. Putnam, Mrs. Martha 
P. Perry, Miss Mary B. Putnam, Mrs. Alice Barnard, Miss Lena 
W. Trask, Mrs. David Mead, Mrs. Nathaniel Batson, Mrs. 8. 
Lizzie Bradstreet, Miss Emilie K. Davis, Mrs. Daniel W. Wood- 
man, Miss Addie Woodman, INIiss Hannah P. Cheever, Mrs. 
Mud:iline L. Putnam, Mr. and ]\Irs. John Lummus, Charles H. 
Masury, Dudley A. Massey, Mr. and Mrs. J. Frank Porter, Miss 
Azubah Kimball, El. E. Woodman, Mi-, and Mrs. Wm. A. Jacobs, 
Miss INLary A. Bomer, IMiss Mary W. Nichols, William- S. Nichols, 
Mrs. Nathan Oakes, Miss Betsey K. Warren, Mrs. Ellen B. Dodge, 
JMiss Abby E. Richards, Miss Alice Richards, and William H. 
Weston. 

Mr. F. E. Moynahan, Flditor of the Danoers Mirror and 
representative of the N. E. Associated Press, Mr. Edmund Noble 
of the Jioston Herald (whose nanic is incorrectly given on a 
sulisequent page), Mr. Fred Tebbets of the Boston Advertiser , 
:ind other journalists, were present, and occupied seats near the 
pl.itform. 



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0LB ANT-I-SIiAVE-RY DAYS. 



THE MEETING IN TOWN HALL, DANVERS. 



[Ki:p(»imi:i) for tiik Danvkrs IIistohkal So( iktv j.v ;\l!;. 
Kdavaki) Xukle, axi> Otiikks.] 



One of lliG most rLMiuirkaliU- iiiectiniis, eoinvuemoriitivo of 
old aiiti-slaveiy days, ever held in this state or country, took 
place in the Toavu Hall in I)an\ers on the afternoon of Wednes- 
ilay, April 21), 1893, under the auspices of the Danvers Histoiic:U 
Society. The gathering ^vas a notable one from many points of 
view. It ])rought together veteran al)olitionists of both sexes, 
who, on account of their extreme age, could never expect to come 
together again foi' a like purpose ; it gave an opportunity, not 
only for a number of bright speeches from men and women who 
were engaged in the great movement aiming at the freeing of the 
the slave, but also for the exchange of personal recollections by 
actors in the stormy scenes that led u[) to emancipation ; it 
focussed the interest and sympathies of abolitionist woi'kers who, 
though unavoidably absent, could send letters of good cheer and 
congratulation to those who were present ; and it did the excellent 
service for the 3'oung people, of whom many were seen in the 
audience, of refreshing their knowledge of a vital episode of the 
nation's hi.'^tory, anil of inspiring them with a new enthusiasm for 
a great movement in the interest of human rights and universal 
brotherhood. The proceedings, which lasted from 1 to G.30 
P. M., were also made memorable by the sweet singing of the 
Hutchinson family, the members of which, led liy Mr. John AV- 
Hutcliinson, sang a number of emancipation melodies and songs 
of liberty. 



Tilt' pt'opk' l)L'gaii to gather in the iiK^niing, and were brought 
into Danvers by various liorse ear, electric and steam raitroad 
lines. IJosides visitors from Danvers i)roi)er, friends came from 
Salem, Lynn, lioston, Amesbur}', Newburyport, and other parts 
of Massachusetts or New England. On reaching Danvei's they 
were enteitained at lunch, served at noon in the rooms of the 
Danvers Historical Society, in the National Bank building. At 
1 o'clock P. INI., the commemorative meeting was oi)ened in the 
Town Ilall, the stage of which had lieen appropriately decorated 
for the occasion. Along the front of the platform were arranged 
a rich i)rofnsion of tlowers and potted plants, and fine portraits 
of John G. Whittier, AVilliam Lloj'd Garrison, Charles Sumner, 
and Kev. Samuel J.May, of Syracuse, N. Y., while the wall at 
the rear was handsomely adorned with tlie stais and stripes and 
other patriotic emblems or devices. 

Ivev. Alfred V. I'utnam, D. D., President of the Danvers 
Historical Society, occupied the chair, surrounded by prominent 
abolitionists who were to take active part in the proceedings of 
the afternoon and by other well-known friends of the anti-slavery 
movement. The main audience included a large number of men 
and women from far and near who had long been devoted to the 
great work of emancipation, and many distinguished citizens 
besides, of Essex County and neighboring districts. 

The opening exercises were S(.mewhat delayed from various 
causes, chiefly to allow a i^hotographic view to be taken of the 
grou[) upon the platform by Mv. William T. Clark, of the Soule 
Photograph Company. 

At about two o'clock President Putnam I'ose and said: 

(fathering under such circumstances, friends, it is meet that 
we should give thanks to God for the great victory of Ereedom 
which we have come together to commemorate, and should invoke 
his blessing upon this scene. I call upon Rev. William H. Eish, 
of Dedliam, a well known veteran in the cause, to offer prayer. 

PRAYEPv BY REV. AVILLIAM H. EISH. 

" Oh Thou, who art the unseen and infinite One, we rejoice 
that Thou art yet always present with us to bless us and guide us 
in our pros[)erities and our adversities, in life and death, as we 
need. Now we come to Thee, thanking Thee, Holy Eather, for 



Hjis liri<;lit and Ix-atitifiil day. ^\\■ tliank Tlice for llu- imiUitude 
tlial liave asseiiilik'd lieiv at tlu' call of this ^Society, drawn togc-th- 
t'l- as we trust by a moral and spiritual attraction. ^Ve thank Thcc 
L'spccially for the orcat and iilorious cause, Ihtc repiesciitcd and 
conimcniorated. W'c thank 'i'luv fui' the iircal awakeniiiL!,- powi'r 
that it was in its day, for the work t!i;it it did. in thine own 
si)irit. and for the many good thinu> tli;it ha\eurown ont of it for 
the welfare of man and wom;in. l-'nther. we thank Thee foi- the 
uolile leaders, hapti/ed into the s[niit of C'hri.-.t. who inaimiMMted 
this movement and led it on so earnestly and so [Mospeionsly. 
We huild monuments to them more duraltle than in:nlile o ■ l)r:i.-.s 
in our lieait of hearts, and so may it l»e with all tliis n.ition. 
'J'honoli so many of them have gone from ns. and vaiushed out of 
Dur sight, we are sure they are not dead. NVe cannot mnke them 
(lead by any thought of ours. 'I'hey believed th;it tliey slioiild 
live on forevermoie, and we hold them not oidy in our gi; teli.l 
inemoi'y and our dee[) and reverent affection, but ;is li\ ing and 
ministering spirits with ns here today. ^Vc l)less 'I'hee for tlu- 
reformers of that earlier time who are still in the Hesh and aie 
vsith us now, and who were so faithful in all their walks and w;iys. 
And we bless Thee for their childi-en. and their children's chil- 
tlren, so many of whom have had the spirit of theii' fathers and 
their mothers in their hearts. And we bless Thee, too, for those 
who consecrated to the scia ice of the slave their gift c)f song and 
thus did so UHich to inspiie the people with the love of liberty. 
And now we connneiid ourselves to Thee, praying that we who 
are nearing the eternal world, soon to pass away, may devote 
ourselves unto the end to wliaf -vei' is promoti\(' of the welfare of 
others. JNlay we believe in 'I'hee, because we find 'J'hee in our 
(leei)er soul ; ami being united with Thee as children to a father, 
and having a calm and sweet confidence in 'I'hee wdien we come to 
the close of this moital life, nniv each one of ns be able to say, 
'•■ 'Ihe Loril is my Shepln'rd, J shall not want, lie maketh me to 
lie down in green pastures, he lead'th me beside the still waters, 
:ind though I walk fhi'ongh the valley of the shadow of death, I 
will fear no evil." Ami then may we l)e admitted to a glad and end- 
less i-eunion with all tlie dear ones who shall have gone before 
ns, to receive the positi )ns and fidlill tlu' duties which thou wilt 
assign to us, and so i)artake of a hapfuness which eye hath not 
seen nor ear heard nor heart of man conceived of. And unto 
Thee the all good and perfi'ct One. in the spii'it of Thy son .Jesus 
Christ, we will offei' thanksgiving and praise through all our days 
and in worlds unknown. Amen." 

Pkksidkn r PiTN.\M : — We will now hear a souii' from the 



Hutchinsons, wlu>iu ^Ye have nskcnl to repeat some of the very 
words and niiisie that tso thrilled the old anti-slavery meetings fox 
so man_y years, and in so many places at home and abroad. ^ Our 
venerable friend, Mr. John W. Hutchinson, the sole surviving 
member of the famous (luartet. will, however, lirst sinp; a song 
which he has written specially for this occasion and which he has 
adapte<l to a tune of his own. I hope he will preface it with soiiie 
reminiscences. 

Mr. Hutchinson then came forward and made the following 
remarks, addressed particularly tD his former associates, after 
which he sang ''Feii\ Faithful and True,'' accompanied in the 
chorus by his daughter, Mrs. Viola Hutchinson Campbell, and lii.s 
granddaughter, Miss Kate Campbell : — 

ADDRESS AND SONG BY MR. JOHN W. HUTCHINSON. 

Dear Friends: — This is an impressive occasion and a moment- 
ous review. We liid you all a hearty welcome. To the few 
veterans whose life has dwindled to so short a span, let me say, 
we congratulate you that one more opportunity is offered that 
will 'yield sacred remembrances of joys we have tasted, and of 
true friendships we have experienced throughout the many yearsi 
during which we lal)ored in the vineyard of good will to all man- 
kind. 

Your joys are full, and our hearts are made glad this day, 
even though it should chance to lie the last. We meet here upon 
ground sacred to the memoi'y of our anc( :^t<>l•s. who, two hundred 
and fifty years ago, settled and culti\at»'d this soil, deriving title 
from the aborigines who had so recently vacate<l their corn fields 
and hunting grounds. Here seven genei-ations, beai'ing the name 
of Hutchinson, have followed in due succession. From this place 
heroes of that and man}' another family went forth to the defence 
of liberty, and were among the bravest at the battles of LexingtoR 
and Bunker Hill and in the struggles of the Revolution. We, who 
have lived since that day of sharp conflicts with the foes of free- 
dom, have rejoiced to hear again the sound of emancipation. And 
now, in our old age, we assemble with our countrymen here and 
connnemorate the events that established the fact that the nation 
could live with chattel slavery entirely eliminated, and right made 
triumphant. 

Familial- as household words shall be the names of (Harrison. 
Rogers, Thompson, Phillips, Douglass, Weld. (^)iiincy, Jackson- 
Burleigh, Sunmer, Chase, Wilson, Birney, Brown, Foster. Kellc}', 
May, Billsbury, Putnam, Mott, l^ni'vis, Chai)man, .Mcdvim, 






U'liittiiT, Al)r:ili;iui Liiirolii an 1 Lucy St<))U\ with the Ti'iliL' of 
Ji'-se-, and full inaiiv (>tliiT>. 

riu' scH'iu's and (>.-(/uri\'iiec-s of anU->la\-t'i'v (lavs shall, in dur 
?i(icial u'allii-M-iniL!,s, he rver ri'iin^MulnTrd. 1 caiinol cxpiH'ss. as I 
would, the SL'iitiiui/nts I I'eid at such a uatlu'iiuLi- as this. The 
a^s()(•iatio!ls of half a crntury of exixTJeiice niiuLili' with tlir>e 
ji:issin<>,' hours and fill uu' with tleliLiiit, which I can only ti'V to 
Tuiee in song. 

Mr. Hutchinson's spirited verses were smig with wonderful 

j-ffcet, and those who were |)resent and who luid heard him forty 

C'r fifty years before were kindled liy him with the same enthusi- 

asiii as then and discovered no loss of his nuisical genius and 

I'lectrifying power. We give the closing lines of his poem, as a 

re-echo of the 0})ening stanzas, omitting the portions that touclu'd 

more directly upon '' The (■om])at lieree, the liattle long.*' 

" So, now, good friends, rejoice with iiio; 
Tlie i^romised day we live lo see : 
Witli grateful hearts and slrouic desire, 
We wait the summons, 'Come up hiuherl' 
Dear Conwades, faithful, tried, and true, 
Heaven is waitiny- for such as you, 
Your work on earth is fully done: 
Ueeeive the crown tliut you have won. 

ChoruH — TJejoice I flejoicc ! lie joiee I 
'J'iic crown is won. " 

REMARKS r,Y THE FRKSIDKNT. 

Ladles unci Gentlemen: — As we ha\e laen delayed in our 
jnoceedings l»y eir<nimstanees \A'ith which you are familiar, I shall 
not long prevent you from listening to other speakers by any 
W(jrds of my own. Dut 1 nniy lie permitted to say in behalf of 
the Danvers Historical Society that 1 warndy welcome ;dl of you 
to this commemoration of oUl anti slavery days. Es[)ecially do 
■we welcome the veterans who ;ire gathered here on the platform 
or who are mingled in the larger crowd before me. — videi'ans (d' 
many a well-fought battle, all or most of whom at the ver^' outset 
dedicated themselves to the sacred cause of liberty and continued 
in the light until the very end, subjected to persecution, to ont- 
yage, to wi-ong, yet faithful ever to the principles of truth and 
justice. We would fain do them special honor here and now. 
and thank them from our very hearts, for the service whicdi they 
have rendered, for the example which they have set, for the inlhi- 
pnce wdiich they have exei'ted. for all that they have done for our 
)>eloved country, and for the world at lai'ge. Von ha\-e taught us, 



dear I'l'iciuls (tlu' is[K'aker hxikiiiLi, .•M'ouikI the platfoi-m) . how Ui 
staml for the riij;ht, to stand for it consistently and uncon)[ji-ouiis~ 
ingly, :^ih1 havin<^ done all, to .>-^7/<<^/. We are all of us the better, 
we trnst. for what 3'on have lieen, foi- what von have said, for the 
lives tliat von ha\e live(l. 'J1ie Messinii' of them that weie ready 
to perish is upon von, with the ui'owinu benedictions of a grateful 
pieople. Thinned and wasted are yoni' ranks, and old age is with 
nn)st of yon, yet we rejoice to know that von are all still young 
and strong in thought and spii'it, and love and faitli. God grant 
that the tinu' may yet be distant, when you shall go hence as liave 
gone so many of y<jur comrades in the memorable conflict. But 
be that day sooner or later, we are most h:ipl)y to have yon here, 
and ho[)e to heai' something from yon of the innnortal stoi'V. For 
better oi' worse, we have arranged for a single session oidy, and 
what with so many addresses that are to be delivered, so many 
letters to be read, and so manv songs to be sung, each si)eaker 
is expected to be brief. We would gladly hear everyone at gi'eat 
length, but th(> hours Hy fast and the committee have thought that 
the amlienee would prefer to hear numerous short s[)eeches rather 
than a few vei'y long ones, and they have made out the pi'o- 
gramme accordingly. I have the pleasure now of introducing tn 
3'ou a distinguished son of an illustrious fatliei' — a father who was 
foremost to enter upon the great warfare, to tling the gauntlet 
down at the feet of the slave power and breast the storm of hatred 
and abus(! which he encountered — a son wdio worthily bears his 
name, and inherits his l)lo()d, and i)ei'petuates his interest in every 
good and holy cause — William Lloyd (xarrison. [Great applause.] 

ADDKIvSS r>Y MK. W'ILLIA>[ LLOYD GAURISOX. 

1 was invited by your President to speak, in the few minutes 
allowed nu', upon the eaily anti-slavery life of my father. I could 
add little if any to the record of his authentic Inographv. and 
tlu'refore elect to treat of a pliasi' of tlie great nxnemeiit >ti'.l 
confused and generally misunderstood because of snr\-iving preju- 
dices ami of peisonal antagonisms unforgc^tten or inherited. 

To one baptized in the early spiii'it of the cause, and boi'ii 
into the circle of uueompron;ising aliolition, nothing is more, 
marked in the cniient attempts to write history than the utter 
failinc of historians to grasp the secret of the anti-slavery i-eform, 
or to appreciate the undeviating ijolicy of its leader. TJie dis- 
tance is not yet great enough to allow the proper perspective, and 
the temper of the times is so swayed by the gosjxd of expediency 
that we must wait for the just recognition which is sure to come 
with the nation's ultimate moral regeneration. What Lowell has 



writton of Lincoln is c'(ni;ill_v ;ii»iilicaliK' to tlio pioneer of the anti- 
shivery canse : 

'• I [iraiso liim not; it wei-c luo late; 
And some iiinative' weakness tliei'c iini>t he 
In him wlio condeseends to vieiory 
Snch as tiie Fresent uives, and eannot wail, 
Safe in liiniself as in a fate. 
So always tirnily lie: 
He knew to hide his time, 
And ean his fame aliide, 
Siill patient ill his simple faith sublime, 
"Till the wise years decide" 

But now, when a sacred treaty with a fi'ieudly naticni, which 
recoi>"nizes '' tlie inherent and inalienable rights (jf man to chaiijj.i.' 
his home and allegiance . . . from (Mie country to another, for the 
purposes of curiosity, of trade, or as jiermanent residents.' is 
l)asely broken, — when the days of liu' Fugitive Slave Law are 
reappearing with tin; Chinese for victims,— when the attem[tt to 
steal Hawaii recalls the liUiliustering efrorts to sei/.e ('i;b;i. — when 
a secret star-chanibei' treaty with Russia permits the Czar U) drag 
back to death or exile the accaised polilical i-efngees who naturally 
sought safety in the land of Washinutou and Lincoln.— when the 
injustice to the Lidiaii and tlie soutliern negro is still coudoncMl, — 
at such a time, what wonder t;;at the i)o[)ulai' estimate'of tlu> 
(rari'lsonian abolitionists is false and misleading 1 

Pick up the attem[)ted histories which Inne been written sinee 
the civil wai', bearing upon the causes and the struggles which led 
to the downfall of slavery, and read the authois' charactei'i/.atiou 
of those impracticable men and wcjiiieii who eonteudc-d for *" im- 
mediate and unconditional eman<n[)atiou" and demanded that the 
•' covenant with Death and the agreement with Ih'U" be annulled. 
You gather from the p<ntrayal that they were excellent and well- 
meaning but fanatical i)eople, given to harsh language and using 
methods subsequently sh.owii to be mistaken. '1 hat by their 
idtimate action in sustaining the Lnion. as against the South, tliey 
confessed the erior of their early contention, and must thei-efore 
be considered less clear of vision than tie statesmen of tlu' He- 
publican party. That, while they weie of service in (aeatiug a 
moral sentiment against slavery, they must liavi; been an uncom- 
fortable lot to associate with, ;ind the fact that society ignored 
them is sullicient evidence to that effect. In short, they were a 
necessary if disagreeable element in the great revolution, and 
cannot therefore be left out of the histoiy, although it is frccjuent- 
ly feasil)le to compi'ess them inlcj a few lines. Some " ca[)tain 
with his gun," who, Init for these fanatics, would have .-lept in 
oblivion, commands more pages. 



8 

I shall aim to show with a forced conciseness, far too iuade- 
(luate, that the very weakness alleged against the abolitionists was 
their tower of strength ; that their direct language was their most 
etfective virtue, that their refusal to take i)art in political organ- 
izations vindicates their claim to the highest statesmanship ; that 
their unbending adherence to absolute principle made them more 
formidable than an army with banners ; and, finally, that the 
'•' covenant with Death and the agreement with Hell" was annulled 
with the destruction of the old Union, leaving no barrier to their 
acceptance of the new. 

In the initial day of anti-slaverv, as at present, he who an- 
nounced the moral law and proclaimed its constant and inevitable 
working, was forced to confront criticism and credulity and to 
see himself held in contempt by the so-called practical party- 
workers. Herbert Spencer, in his earlier and better day, has 
admirably characterized " people who hate anything in the way 
of exact conclnsious," to whom " right is never in either extreme, 
})ut always half way between the extremes," who ai-e continually 
trying to reconcile Yes and No ; who have great faith in the 
'\iudicious mean," and who " would scarcely believe an oracle if 
it uttered a full-length principle." " Were you to inquire of 
them," he says, " whether the earth turns on its axis from east 
to west or from west to east, you might almost expect the reply, — 
' A little of both,' or ' Not exactly either.' " And the wise phil- 
osopher bids ns recollect "that ethical truth is as exact and as 
peremptory as physical truth," that "there can be no half-and- 
half opinions," and that in the nature of things " the fact must 
be eitlicr one way or the other." 

Long before Spencer formulated this axiom it was a[)pre- 
hended and acted upon by Garrison. To his moral nature the 
(piestion of obedience to the law could never arise, and. to his 
eyes, disobedience was fraught with danger and punishment. To 
aflirm that slaver}' was wrong, was to him equivalent to saying 
that it must be abolished at once. " At once !" exclaims the 
startled expedientist. ''• Think of the dangt^- and disturbance 
to follow !" The calm reformer replied, "Wrong can never be 
too quickly righted. The longer it prevails, the more terrible the 
judgment." No efforts to shake his position prevailed. On 
matters of mere opinion or expediency, no one was more accom- 
modating than he, but on principle he stood like Gibraltar. So 
he was ever a laudmark to steer by. Political promontories suffer 
geographical changes. What chart could locate a Webster per- 
manent enough to i)revent the shipwreck f)f mariners reckoning 
on his stability? Who can measure the drift from his Plymouth 
liock speech to that of the 7th of jNJarchV 



[} 

S(_) llie primal wisdoui of (iuri'isou was lidi'lily to uii cliTiial 
j)rineii)lc. It angered men and parties who were ineommoded l>y 
such stuMiornness. Hence the change of liis unreasoninii,' i)rr- 
sistcnc}'. Well did Lowell nnderstand it. 

" Men of a tlionstuul shifts and wiles, look here! 

See one stniiyhtrorwiird eonscitiuee pat in pawn 
To win a world; see the ol)edient si)lR're 

By bravery's simple iiiavitation drawn." 

Clear-siglitednoss coutroUed the reformer when he deelined 
to trust either himself or his cause to u political imrty. ]t In'ought 
ui)on his head the augry denunciation whose echoes are not yet 
.stilled. 

It was natural for the Athenians to be weary of hearing 
Aristides called •* the Just." AVhile he stood as the recognized 
type of justice, the selUsh and the unjust felt keenly their con- 
scious disadvantage. If the standard-bearer of nioralit}' would 
not hold his emblem quite so steadily aloft, but would lower it 
now and then to accommodate certain circumstances or conditions, 
lie would be less irai)ractieable in the popular regard. Doubtless 
he was reminded, as all reformers are, that " the ideal is all very 
*vell, but that we must take things as we find them," and that 
-" theory is one thing and practice is another," 

Garrison never confused the functions of the reformer with 
lose of the politician. One must keep himself in the clear 
atmospliere of abstract truth, the other must mingle in the si rife 
•of personal amViitions. As Theodore Parker well stated it, -'In 
morals as in mathematics, a straight line is tlu; shortest distance 
between two points." The course of tlu' Garrisonian abolition- 
ists was without deflection, and for the vei'v reason ihat they had 
no elections to carr^', no conservatives to placate. !io feai- of re- 
sults. Results I A reformer who concerns himseU" vvith i-esults 
loses his vision and his strength. " That is V.ni l)usiness of 
Jupiter," not his. Ilis to see and [iroclaim j)iiiieii)h's which, 
from their nature, can be trusted in their oi)oration. 

I remeralier once expressing regret t(j my father that lu; 
should differ with several of his anti-slavery friends on a certain 
question, and suggesting reconsideration in conse(jiience. His 
reply was in effect, '' If one would preserve liis jnoral vision tliei'e 
are matters in which he should never consult with lle.sh and [)!o()d. 
The question is with his own soul, and to in(iuire how such or 
such a one thinks before deciding on his course is to lose discein- 
ment and to invite confusion. What mattei' if all the world 
iliffer?" Tliat such an attitude should provoke ex[)edienti»ls i.s 
inevital)le. 



10 

Tlie course of the anti-slavery political parties was of neces- 
sity sinuous. Think of the crooks and turns of the pai'ty which, 
startino- with James G. Bii'ney for its presidential candidate, ended 
with JMartin Van Bureu ! And. np to the time of the civil war, — 
brought about by the "• in'epressiljle conflict" which the abolitionists 
ever preached, — its final candidate was blind enough to think that 
he might save the Union without desti'oying slaver^'. Fortunate 
was it for the reputation of IMr. Lincoln that his desire was over-- 
ruled by omnipotence and his immortalit}' ensured b}' the circum- 
stances he would fain have prevented. 

The future historian will have for a most pregnant chai)ter- 
the no-union position of the abolitionists. As a nioi'alist he will 
l)e bound to recognize that for them to take an oath supporting a 
pro-slavei-y constitution, which [)olitical action necessitated., 
would have stultilied their conscience and impaired their powerful; 
influence. To denounce slaveiy and then to agree to a constitu- 
tional compact recognizing it and consenting to its immoral com-- 
promises would have been an ethical paradox. Tiie abolitionists- 
attempted no casuistry to justify political action. 

The old Union was dissolved by the shot fired at Sumter. 
To call States united, whereof half were liusily engaged in slaugh- 
tering the other half, was to indulge in fiction. No dissolution 
could have been more decided. Concpiest does not make a iniion. 
Poland in chains did not mean union with Kussia. When -^ peace- 
reigns in ^V'arsaw," we know what kind of i)eace it is. A sul)ju- 
gated South was a nation tied l)y compulsion to the North, nor 
was the union restored at Appomattox. The uncompleted i>ro- 
cess has taken more than a quarter of a century and still goes on,. 
l)ut with slavery eliminated ha|)pily no obstacle exists to prevent 
the ultimate unity for which we so much long. Histor}^ will yet 
recognize that the abolition cry for dissolution was the cry of 
conscience as well as of prophecy. 

Let me illucti'ate tlie political anti-slavery creed that is vaunted", 
as the practical and efl'ective weapon which emancipated the slave.. 
Listen to Richard H. Dana. Li 1.S48 he declared that he was a. 
Free Soiler by inhei'itancH' and liecause he disliked subserviency 
to the slave-holding oligarchy, adding, '' A technical Abolitionist 
I am not. T am a constitutionalist, and in favor of adhering; 
honestly to Ihe compromises of that instrument. If I were in. 
Congress, and the South should come with clean hands, keeping; 
faithfully her side of the compact, and demand of ns a fugitive- 
slave law, I should feel bound to give her one." How long would 
it lake such a propaganda to arouse a sleeping nation? The- 
answer is ''• Until Doomsday." Slaverv never treml)led before 



1! 

Micj ;i ]il:,t,'tii'in ;is tliat iipDii wliicli Lincoln \\":is iKnniiinted. How 
it rends in the liiiht of events ! *• Tiie niaiiiteiiniiee inviolate of 
tlie liulits of tile States, and es|)eeially tin- riulit of eaeli Stiite to 
crilei' and conti'ol its own domeslie institntions [slavery inclnded] 
according to its own jndjinient exehisively, is essential to that 
halanee of powers on Mliieli the perfection and endnrance of oui' 
political falirie de|)ends." \\'hat a triflinii; with conscience! 
What a contempt for the hiiiiier law ! Ami aceordinti; to current 
history it was sucli niea -and such party as this that aliolished 
slaveiy ! 

IIow shoit ari' memories ! I'ecanse in the stoi'm and stress 
of civil war, and for self-preservation, t lie ])arty of compromise 
and disitelief in alistraet light were foiced liy military necessiitj 
alone to issue the edict of en!auei[)ation, to them is awardi^'d the 
lionoi' and the yloi-v. ruwillinu' instruments, they forget tlu; 
hand that used them for the mii>hty purpose. Ever ready to over- 
look the rights of the slave, so that an election might lie carried 
or .nil otii.H' won. it is the imrlisaus of such ex[)ediency who would 
liolittle the pioneers. In the liiinament of the century the tele- 
scope of real liistoiT will leveal clearly the lixed stars of abolition, 
and their names will he an encourauement to the idealists and a 
discom-agement to the time-servers. 

The calm verdict yet to hv rendered will come at length from 
the lace which was the \ictiiu of American Christianity. It wil! 
weigh carefully the men and the events connected witli the free- 
dom of foui- million slaves. Think von that it will (ind the lan- 
gnau'e of the aliolitiouists harsh? 'i'hat it will hiame them for 
declining political alliliat ions which dem.auded a iirolongation of 
the sum of all villainies'.-' Will not tlie jury rather be inclined 
to consider the language far too inadecpnite to meet the situation? 
As for him who stood as the incarnate foe of o[)pression, advo- 
catino,' it with such feivor and feeling that men who had never 
seen him took it for m'anted that lie was i)lack, will the retlcf-tion 
of the jurors be, '' Alas, that he was so impracticable I He might 
have lieeii a niembei' of Congress or the holder of a fat ollice, but 
he thi'ew ;iwav his great ch.'ince Iccanse he was so impracticable 
that he could not forget them that are in bonds as bound with 
them." 

At this stage O" the meeting the Secretary, JMiss Hunt, read 
elocpient letters ac'dressed to the President for the occasion, from 
Hon. Fiederick Dou'jla>s, Mr. Theodtnc I). Weld, Rev. William 
H. Furnes<, I). D., iNliss Mary Grew and Kev. Jose[)h May, ton of 
Rev. .Samuel .1. May, of Syracuse. Dr. Putnani spoke of the 



12 

earnest uiiil faillifiil devotion of tliesn (•<nspiiuous anti-s aveiy 
champions, and, as Philadelphia, wheiv' several of thcni had lon^ 
Jived and served, was one of the most influential centres of A'l- 
olitionism hy reason of their work and inHucnee, he propos.'d 
tiiat the following message should at once be forwaided to 
them and their co-laLorers in that city : 

"Danveks, JMass., April 20, 1893. 

The Danvers Historical Society and other friends of Liberty, 
now assembled here in commemoration of old Anti-Slavery days, 
greet with grateful affection and honor Mary Grew, Kosanna 
Tliompson, William Henry Fnrness, Kobert Purvis and their 
Philadelphia associates in the cause of emancipation." 

The message was greeted with loud applause by the an- 
dieuce, and Iniving been heartily and unanimously adopted, was 
sent by telegraph. 

Prksidkxt PL"rxA:\i : I have no\v the great [)leasure of in- 
troducing to you, as the next speaker, one of the original and 
life-long co-workers with iMr. Garrison, one of the truest and 
best of the great Reformer's friends and hel[)ers, who is widely 
known for his iudefatigal)le zeal iu philanthroi)ic and Christian 
service, and who has given added lusti'e to a name which many 
others have made dear to lovers of (iod and marl* — the Rev. Sam- 
\iel INIay, of Leicester. 

]Mr. May had a very warm reception as he rose to speak, 
and his words commanded the close attention and entire sympa- 
tliy of his hearers. 

ADDRESS OF RKV. SAMUP:L IMAY. 

The speaker said he should restrict himself to the alh)wed 
tea minutes. He thanked Mr. Garrison for the fine anecdote of 
his father, and s:ud it reminded him of one of "Wendell Phillips 
which he thought worthy to go with it. He had been simihirly 
urged l)y a fri.'ud t ) m >.l,M'at3 til:; s3V3rity of his speech: "You 
are hindering your wt)rk, Mr. Phillips; you will ne\'er al)olis!i 
slavery in this wav." "'My dear sir," was the re[)ly, "(bxl ditl 
not send me into the world to abolisli slavery, but to do my 
duty." [The further remarks of jNIr. JMay are in the moie ex- 
tended form which he had prepared for the occasion.] 

No more appropriate place than the County of Essex, for 



holiiiii.u' :i iiuctiiiu' to cciiinH'nH'i'iilc tln' overthrow of slavciy. 
couUl tie found. It \v;i8 the liirlliphiee. within :i few _ve;ii's of 
eneh oilier, within :i few mihs of e;ich otiier. of \\'illi;ini i.U)\il 
Gai'iison :ni(l of .lolni ( ii'eeiilc ;if \\' hitlitr.— t w <> iic n who it::iT 
])(' said to have created thi' nio\cinent. which h d directly lo liic 
Aluilition of ShiNcrv in this land. 'I'here were aholitionists lie- 
fore their day; faitld'nl souls who caiTied the Imrden of the 
slave's wrongs in their heaits 'all theii- lives: Imt they scai'ccly 
knew each other; ar.d tlu'ie ^\:ls ro (onceitcd action amop.g 
tlioni. It was in every ease -aw in iivi hi d [irotest and a disro- 
jiarded warninu'. llenjamin Lnndy went on foot from state to 
stale, from Ik-usc to lunise, tellinjj,- the shameful story ; sti'ivin.g 
to awaken couscienci' and feeliui)' ; printin;j,' an edition of his 
paper now here, now there, and nuiiling it Avhen printed to his 
few suijscrihers, and such others as his means allowed. Edwui 
M. Stanton, President Lincoln's able and fearless War Secretary, 
told me in his own oflice, just after the close of the War of the 
Rebellion, that Mv. Lunch' was accustomed to make periodical 
visits to his father's house, in Ohio ; — the wrongs of slavery his 
constant theme. That Woolman, Benezet, Franklin, Rush, Ed- 
wards, Lundy and others, pre[)ared the ground and sowed good 
seed cannot be doubted, lint the conscience of the nation 
seemed paralyzed. Its young people were hearing the fatal doc- 
trines of slavery's constitutional rights from Calhoun and Mc- 
Duftie, of expediency and compromise from Henry Clay and Pvl- 
ward Everett, from liishops and joriests, from political editors and 
from theological seminaries. The noble words wdiich Daniel 
Webster spoke at Plymouth Rock, in 1820, against the still ac- 
tive slave trade failed to arouse the American heart; and he soon 
forgot them himself. Abject acquiescence with the slavehokliug 
demands was everywhere. There was no open vision. There 
was no pi'ophetic word. 

But that word was to be uttered ; and it came from a son oi 
Essex County, Massachusetts. It said: — ''I have determined at 
every hazard to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes 
of the nation, within sight of Hunker Hill and in the birthplace of 
liberty. * * \ shall sti'enously contend for the immediate en- 
franchisement of our slave i)o[)ulation. - * * i am in ea.i- 
nest. I will not ecjiiivocate. I will not excuse. I will not 
retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." Thus did Williarji 
Llosxl Garrison throw down the gauntlet, .b-iniiaiy 1st, INMl. 
That he took his life in his hand, we have all heard — some of us 
I'einember. The great command was on iiiin. ••Thou shnlt speak 
my word to tJiem. whether iliev will hear or whether they will 
forbear." 



14 

But it was the voice of one cryiiiu' in the wiliKM-ncs-;. Soiii.- 
listened aiul euine I)y ni>iht. to iiKiuire : and a few juiiUMJ openly. 
Twelve men gathered in a room in Uo.ston. in l.S.ii. and foimed 
Tiie New England Anti-ShiviTV Society. A Sont'i m'u l-uislatnie 
in Noveml)er, I80I, proclaimed a leward of live t.ionsand ih)lhiib 
for the head of the Liberator, William Lloyd (!arri.son. Ilerod 
(sought the young" life U) destroy it; ami, as \Vhittier wrote, 
Pilate and Herod weie made friends to accoinplish it. Those 
who ventured to speak were assaulted, suhjected to abuse and in- 
jury, east into prison, their houses and hulls burnt to the ground, 
not a few put to death. The rulers and all who sought to l>e 
Siuch, conspired against them. Some, who ran well for a time, 
Vy'ere bye and bye offended ; forsook the cause and fled ; and 
iBome betrayed it, to escape martyrdom themselves. It was among 
the plain people, the common people, that the call of Fi'eedom 
"was heard gladly by jMiblicans and sinneis, in the absence of 
saints, by a few Ival)l)is and lawyers, with now and then a man 
of learning, genius and eloquence. Sometimes one came who 
I)rought his wealth to Freedom's service. The mighty autl the 
wise, with rarest exceptions, stood aloof or wei'e hostile. It 
was the experience of all time. As Lowell wrote : 

■'Right forever 011 the seartoUl, VVronu forev r on the throne:" 
Ikit he added, 

"Yet tiiat scaftbkl sways the future, and, l)eliiiul the diui inikuowi, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keepinii" w.ireh a!n)ve his own." 

It was the story again of the giant (Toliali and the stripling 
T.ith only a sling and a few smooth stones from the brook. 

Every great effort for freedom and for tintli discloses agencies, 
if invisible, yet mighty to the pulling down of Liirpiity's strong- 
iiolds. Fighting against God. no matter wlio or wdiat the men. 
is a bad business and a losing one. The abolitionists said from 
the iirst, that '"(Tod himself was with th mu foi' tU di- Captain." 

But wlu'U will the victory come? ••Not in our diy," was. 
for long 3'ears. the prevailing ansvver. '•Taere are tW(j thousand 
millions of dollars invested in slavery, and it is in vain to assail 
it," said Heni'v Clay. That was American statesmanship tlien. 
The very power of slavery [)roved its destruction. Its arrogance 
led it to raise its hand against the nation. That act invited its 
tloom. ''Whom the Gods will destroy, they first m die mad." 

Our fathers of New England often s[)oke of the '"Wonder- 
working Providence" which led them lietter than their own wis- 
4lom could devise. Could there ever be a more w^onderful proof 
cf a Pow.^'r greater t!i 1:1 m iii's, m iking foi" righte.>uslK^ss, than 



IT) 

' :is evineotl in the downfuU of the great Babylon of Aniericau 
iavery? Yet it was no miracle. For thirty years the seed- 
wheat of God's mightiest truths had been sown fearlessh' and in 
faith all over tlie northern lands. And when slavery, in its 
wrath and folly, lifted its murderous hand, it found a generation 
-of men dilferent from those who had bowed in servility so lon<i'. 
None the less was it felt that that it was with a mighty hand and 
n stretched-ont arm that God brought his people out of the land 
of bondage ; it was the almightiness of Truth and Eternal Right 
that had conquered. 

Shall I say a word of my own connection with the Anti- 
. Slavery movement? I was not of the earliest abolitionists. The 

first number of The TJberator was published on the first day of 
...rlanuary, 1831. It was not until 1833, and the reading of Mrs. 

Lydia Maria Child's book, "•An Appeal in favor of that class of 
j\.mericans called Africans," that I found m3'self unable to be 
-anything but an abolitionist. After my ministry, at Leicester, 
■ of twelve years, in which I had tried to treat the Anti-Slavery 
•cause as an integral part of my Christian ministerial duty, I l)e- 

came, in 1847, (ieneral Agent of the jNIassachusetts Anti-Slavery 
..-Society and held the office to the end of the Civil AV^ar. 

You will be interested to hear of those wdio w(M'e tlien doing 
the anti-slavery work ; men and women, whom the older poition 

-of the audience have seen and heard. They were AI)by Kelley, 
iiftcrwai'ds INIrs. Foster. vStephen S. Fostei', Charles C. and Cyrus 
Burleigh, Parker Pil!sl)ury (vigoioiis yet and ^vitll ns today). 
Susan B. Anthony. Lucy Stone (with us today). Sallie HoUcy, 
Charles L. Bemond, Wni. Wells Brown, Andrew T. I<'oss. Daniel 
S. Whitne}' (with us today) ; and latei'. Anna Dirkinson. .lohn 
L. Russell, George W . Putnam (who will bye ai.d bye address 
you), E. II. Hey wood and many mor(\ Nor these alone. The 
cause had a reserve fund of unequalled [)ower. who freely ga\e it 
time and labor of a value lieyond price : — ^Slr. (iarrison himself, 
AVendell l^hillips. Ednmnd (^uincy, .lames N. P)uffum, Henry C. 
'\Vright, Edwin Thompson and others. Brave and truly Clii'is- 
tain ministers, Theodore Parker, -James Freeman Clarke, Adin 
Ballon, Thomas T. Stone. Jacob M. Manning. C). B. Frothing- 
liam, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Longfellow, were generous in an- 
swering calls upon their time. At the lirst open-air meeting of 
the Society which I attended, — it was at NValtham, July 4, 
1847 — James Russell Lowell was [jresent. I asked him to ''say 
ix woi-d" to the meeting ; Imt he said ''Oh, I cannot ; I never said 

~tx word in mv life." He aaid so many good words later; he hail 



already iv7'Uten so many good ones; that his silence then wat- 
easiiy excused. 

Let me name, too, those who wei'e then otlicers and 
managers of the i\iass;u'h.iisetts Anti-Shivcry Society; not pnblic 
speakers, l)iit insi)ir(_'i's (j f thot-e who wltc ; tlie organizei's, the- 
cleai'-hcadi'd, stout-hcarlcd. fearless hh'm and women, qnite as 
essential, (luite as helpful, to the caiifc as any who have been 
named. First of them J speak of Fiancis dackson, President of 
the Society, to whose house the BosttJii Fennde Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety was invited, when driven by the mob of October, 1835,. 
from their own rooms at 4(] Washington street; Mrs. Maria W. 
Chapman, ]\Irs. Eliza Lee FoUen, Miss Anne W. Weston, Dr. 
Henry I. Bowditch, James E. Lowell, dohn Rogers, (-'ornelius- 
Bramhall, Charles K. Whi|)ple, John M. Spear, Samuel Phil- 
brick was Treasurer, Robert F. Walleut, Secretary, Edmund 
Quincy, Corresponding Secretary'. These, with Messrs. Garrison 
and Phillips, then constituted the Board of Managers. Of the 
twenty-six Vice Presidents, only three survive. Rev. Thomas T. 
Stone, now of Bolton, Joshua T. Everett and Wm. Bowman 
Stone. From the very first, and throughout, Ellis Gray Loring 
and Samuel E. Sewall were devoted friend s and helpers. 

It was at a later time that Theodore D. Weld came to Massa- 
chusetts, his health so impaired by his work in the Western and 
Middle states, that he has but seldom spoken here in public. In. 
the earlier days of the Society, its principal agents had been 
Arnold Buffum, Samuel Joseph May, Frederick Douglass, John 
A. Collins and Loring Moody. 

Ralph Waldo Emerson was at first critical of the Anti- 
Slavery societies. But that ceased, as the Fugitive Slave Law 
and the Civil War came on. He had previously given the prin- 
cipal address before a First of August meeting of the Society, 
held at Worcester on the hill where the State Normal School, 
stands now. The address was printed in pamphlet form. We 
must recall today his well-known witticism, "Eloquence is dog- 
cheap in the Anti-Slavery meetings." Parker Pillsbury can tell 
you, better than I, of the help which that other Concord sage^ 
Henry D. Thoreau, gave to the cause of freedom. 

The cause had its poets. Who can fitly tell the service ren- 
dered to the cause of freedom by Mr. AVhittier and Mr. Lowell? 
Thousands of tongues and pens have recently joined in doing: 
honor to them both, — and yet there is room. Unending bless- 
ings, from :dl true hearts, will ever wait on their memories.. 
Others there were, and among the earliest and bravest was John. 
Pierpont, of IloUis street church, Boston. 



17 

The aiili-slavery niovenient was an emancipating one, in 
niiotlu'i' sense. It emancipated its advocates from the bondage 
• if sect, the bondage of party, the bondage of creed. It bronght 
'ogether people whom the sects and parties luid l\ept asnnder and 
kei)t estranged, and made them brothers. It was a great recon- 
ciling power. It set free men's son Is. 

Then witness its high religions fnnetion and force. Never, 
in America, had jiractical Christianity been so taught and so ex- 
emplified. No one who had heard its speakers, no one who had 
ever read its poets and scholars, can question this. At one of its 
great open-air meetings (at Abington, in Plymouth Co.) James 
Freeman Clarke said, "I find here in the anti-slavery meeting a 
church of Christ, a church in deed and truth." 

Thirty years nearly have elapsed since the overthrow and 
downfall of slavery in these United States. But it is yet too 
early for that complete history of the movement, made up of 
many parts, which this meeting was called to commemoiate. A 
full and reliable history, the most so of any now existing, is the 
memoir of Mr. Garrison l)y his sons. Its bidk has i^robably 
stood in the way of its being extensively read, but that is not 
objectionable to the thorough and conscientious student; nor will 
it ever cause regret to any one who takes it iii hand in a truth- 
loving spirit. 

We meet today in no boastful spirit. We rejoice, with ex- 
ceeding great joy, in the triumph of right over wnjiig. Our only 
personal feeling is that of thankfulness that we had a part, how- 
ever small, in lifting our counti'y from the guilt and shame of 
slavery. As JMr. Garrison always said, so would we all say, 
"Not unto us, not unto us, l)ut unto Thy name give glory, for 
Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake." 

President Putnam: — One of the early and most ])0werful 
agencies for forwarding the anti-slaver}' movement, was, of 
course, the old Liberty Part} . It was the first of the great po- 
litical organizations that were found necessary to carry into effect 
the essential truths and principles which had begun to take hold 
of the mind and heart of the people. It did a nobis work in its 
time, and we have the good fortune to be favoi'ed with the pres- 
ence with us today, of one of its most highly esteemed and useful 
representatives. He, too, is full of years and honors. He has 
told me that he has written what he has to say, and that, should 
his strength fail him befoi'e the allotted time has expired, he will 
pass his manuscript over to his grandson, j\lr. Willis R. Fisher, 
who is with him. As we hope to publish all these speeches in 
l)ami)hlet form, we shall expect to have the benefit of our friend's 



18 

words ill full, in cue way if we cannot in anotiier. Hon. .'^]\[. M. 
Fislier of Medway will now address you. 

(Mr. Fisher, having read a few pages of his manuscript, 
handed it to his grandson, who occupied the remainder of the ten 
minutes. The entire pa[)er is herewitli i)resented.) 

AU DRESS OF HON. M. M. FISHER. 

JMii. President AND FuiKNDS : — An old man is not much if 
not reminiscent. He either never knew much or has forgotten 
what he once knew. A very common soldier in the Anti-Slavery 
War of thirty-five years, from 1831 to 1865, must have had some 
exjyerience ; whether he can relate it so as to be agreeable to 
himself or to others is quite a different matter. 

A few months before the death of our dear mutual friend 
Whittier I visited him at Newburyport. I read to him an extract 
of some twenty lines of equal measure from a poem, so called, 
written for and delivered in i)iiblic on a graduation day of a High 
School in Medway in 1831. This was tiie time of my enlistment 
in the old conflict, and he said they were good. 

On my seventy-seventh birthday he wrote me as follows : — 
"•As one of the Old Guard in the Anti-Slavery War 1 know well 
thy works of courage and devotion in the dark days of the great 
conflict." In this community where I am a stranger, and he so 
well known, I am quite willing, even proud, that such a friend 
should speak for me. Of these "works" doubtless he would 
refer you to the beginning of the slavery discussion in Amherst 
College, 1833, which ended in victory for free speech to the 
credit of^the elder professoi' Hitchcock. He mi^ht speak of the 
opening of a colored school in that town and the incident of a 
young man who, on April 23d, 1834, sixty years ago save one, 
in a private carriage made a southern trip for his health, making 
a delightful call upon the Kev. Samuel J. May at Brooklyn, 
Connecticut, who received him with marked courtesy ; and who 
v/ould have also called upon Mr. Garrison- and his new bride at 
Father ''Benson's," only they had just left for New York and 
elsewhere — and who, at Mr. May's earnest request, rode over to 
Canterbury to visit Prudence Crandall and her colored girls' 
school, and who gave them as they needed a word of cheer. 
Then as he passed on to the first anniversary meeting of the Ameri- 
can Anti-Slavery Society in New York and its thrilling incidents 
as [)ublished in the "Commonwealth" of Boston in 1885 — 
going south to other meetings in Philadeli)hia, and then travelling 
through the slave states of Delaware, Maryland. District of Co- 
luniliia, into Virginia and as a colporter distributing Phelps' Book 



19 

on Shwei'V aiid other similar liti'rature, coiixerbing with bhivos 
liy tlie way and in their homes at Monnt \'ern()n, learning their 
condition and giving them eneonragement anil hope in their grief 
over the recent sale of their children to the rice t^wainp^- and 
cotton fields of the far south, and also visiting the great slave 
pen of William l\ol>y in Wasliiiigton antl hearing the tales of 
shame and grief from one to whom thev wert' a daily and nightly 
experience. Again, he could refer to the tirst introduction, ten 
years latei', of the slavery (piestion into the great Missionaiy 
])Oard at Worcester, and to its linal outcome in the witlidra w;i I 
of many rneml)ers and fiiends, lesnlting in the formation of 
the American Missionary Association in 1<S47, now so i)rosp,'rous 
in the southern Held in educational and missionary work ; all of 
which may be found in the Boston Traveller of Decemliei' l-'i. 
1S84. 

These and other events with their many inciilents in (U-lail 
known to our friend Whittier, I sn|)]»ose were the --woiks of 
courage and devotioa" to which he referred in his very courleon.-. 
letter he was [)leased to send the writer on his seventy-seventh 
liirthday. 

fUit with (hie apology for so much by way of introduction, 
I must proceed to the second epoch assigned more especially to 
me, in the anti-slavery conllict — the organization and work of the 
Old Lil)eral Tarty, "all of which I saw and a small part of which 
I was." 

TiiK LiuKUTV Party. 

Ml!. PuKSiur.NT : — As ideas precede action, so a sentiment 
of op[)osition to American slavery preceded all direct action for 
its al)olition. This sentiment preceded and dominated the soul 
of Garrison before his spoken and written words, and like a voice 
from heaven kindled a like sentiment in the soul of many others. 
So ideas, voices and pens, in their natural order, preceded ballots 
and bullets in the great contest for the freedom of the slave. 
Early in the moral agitation and educational work by Garrison 
and Whittiei-, Channing and Phelps, Pierpont and Leavitt, 
Mrs. Childs and others, it was seen and admitted by discerning 
men, politicians, statesmen and common people, that befcjre the 
slave could be free, the civil, if not the military power, must be 
evoked in his behalf. AVhen and how to begin this necessary 
work was the supremo question. I well rememlier Henry Wilson 
in 1840 or a little later, with the true spirit of hatred to slavery 
in his soul, told me he could not vote for a slave-holder for Pres- 
ident, but in 1844 he voted for Henry Clay, and as he wrote me 
he was better than Polk and favored gradual emancipation. 



20 

Diirino- tlie first ten yoius (from 1831 to 1840) of the moral 
agitation of the question, few shivehohlers liad been so con- 
vinced by the force of argument against slaveiy as to emancipate 
their shxves. Among tlie few Janus G. Birney, a prominent 
Christian hiwyer in Huntsville, Ahiljama, was a conspicuous 
example. 

Previous to this time candidates of the old political parties 
were solicited by letter to declare their position upon this ques- 
tion and received votes of anti-slavery men according to their 
answers. 

The original platform of the National Anti-Slavery Society 
formed in December, 1833, was peiliaps wisely reticent as to the 
necessity or use of the civil power in the prosecution of a work 
destined to shake the nation to its very centre. Kelying upon 
the supreme justice of their cause, the intelligence and conscience 
of the American people, the united voice of the platform, the 
pulpit and the press, the}' hoped the great leform would be ac- 
complished. 

When concerted action in the use of the ballot by a new 
political party was suggested by some of its prominent members, 
there was unfortunately a large division of opinion. Complica- 
ted with other social questions, such as non-voting in politics, 
secession from churclies, admitting women to the platform and 
the pulpit, questions new and unsettled in the social order, it 
seemed for a time to the conservatives that the very foundations 
of society were being or likely to be subveited. Amid such 
throes and convulsions tlie Liberty i\aity was born. It was soon 
found that the new abolition societies and the resultant Liberty 
Party for concerted political action were as earnest and potent 
forces against slavery as any agency which simply made moral 
and educational forces a specialty, and that both combined work- 
ing in tlieir chosen way wouhl ultimatelv secure the desired re- 
sult. 

Though the struggle between the old and new order of things 
for a time was a little sharp, '-when tlie new wine was i)nt into 
new bottles both were preserved." 

Tiie birth of the Liberty Party occurred in 1840, on the eve 
of the most intense Presidential election of modern times, result- 
ing in the election of William Henry Harrison by an overwhelm- 
ing electoral majority. Only men of the most stalwart convictions- 
on the slavery (piestion could stem the tide that set so strongly 
tOAvard the candidates of their old affiliations. (Jrcat induce- 
ments were personally given to anti-slavery men supijosed to be 
at all am1)itious for [jolitical favoi' to vote with the old iiarties 



•21 

just this once moi-o. nud iioxt year their calling and election in 
the old parties would lie sine. But with a few men the die was 
cast and under the liannei- of the Liberty Paity they went to the 
pulls and cast their votes for James G. Birney and for the doom 
of American sla\ery. A ticket for Presidential electors, state 
officials and members of Congi'ess, was voted, 1 think, in ten, at 
least, of the free states. In my own town, seventeen votes only 
were cast for it and Medway was the banner town of Norfolk 
County. In the whole state there were only 1081 votes, and in 
all the states there were found "seven thousand who had not 
bowed the knee to Baal," a small vote to be sure, but significant. 
In 1844 the vote in Massachusetts went up by successive steps to 
9635, a tenfold increase in five years, and to GO, 000 in all the 
states. The smallness of the vote in 1840 was a disappointment, 
of course, and a subject for ridicule in the old party newspapers, 
and the prophecies of a short life and ignoble death were expect- 
ed to procure their own fnltilment. 

But such men as lion. William Jackson of Newton, >Samnel 
E. Sewall of Roxbury and Gen. Appleton Howe of Weymouth 
and men of their stamp, were made of sterner stuff than to have 
"put their hands to the plough to look back," and they pressed on 
under their chosen banner to victory. 

During the next few j'ears the anti-slavery sentiment per- 
vaded the old parties ; the churches and religious organizations 
began to crystallize into more emphatic forms of protest against 
the slave power. Salmon P. Chase in 1841 and later ex-Gov' 
ernor IMorris, both of Ohio, and John P. Hale of New Hampshire, 
Gf)vernor Slade of Vermont following soon after, allied them- 
selves to the fortunes of the rising young party. The Wilmot 
Proviso Democrats, and the Conscience Whigs, under the lead of 
Charles Fi'ancis Adams and Henry Wilson, stimulated the older 
parties to take higher ground against the domination of the slave- 
holding oligarchy. 

It needed a party exigency of some magnitude to disrupt tlu' 
party ties that l)egan to menace a large depletion to both and a 
sure defeat to one at least of the old parties. This exigency 
came in the National Democratic Convention in 1848 that nom- 
inated Gen. Cass for President and in the Whig Convention that 
nominated Gen. Taylor, — a nomination that Mr. Wel)ster said 
"was not fit to be made." 

In this chaos of the old parties the wise men of the Lil)erl'y 
Party were not mere spectators. They saw in it the leaven of the 
truth hidden by Garrison and later worki'rs in the cause, su<ldenly 
ex[>andiiig the lnni[) in unwonted jiroportions. 



Mass nieetiiio-s were at once called in all the fi'ee states. Iii 
.]nne of that year, at least 5000 people assenil)le<.] npon the Com- 
mon in Worcester. The veneralile and Hon. Samuel Hoar and 
iiis son, tlie ex-Judge, then a young man, Judge Allen and many 
othei's, were heanl with intense satisfaction. A platform of jirin- 
ciples was formed by a committee, Stephen C. Phillips, Chairman, 
of which Judge Hoar and myselt are the only living members. 
The result of these meetings was the call for a national convention 
at Buffalo, Aug, 10, 1848, to nominate candidates for President 
and Vice-President for the Party of Liberty under a new name. 
The Free Soil Party, at that time especially appropriate as the 
slave power, was seeking the vii-gin soil of vast territories for its 
extension and i)er[)etuity. The delegates to this convention weie 
three from eac!i county, one from each of the existing parties. 
It was the writer's privilege to be a delegate for Norfcjlk Countv 
with Charles Francis Adams and NVilliam J. Reynolds to this con- 
vention, over wiiich Salmon P. Chase of Ohio from the Libeitv 
Party was called to preside, while Charles Francis Adams from 
the Conscience Whigs presided over a mass meeting of many 
thousands. On a street in Buffalo I witnessed a scene I shall 
never forget. Jn the early morning a steamer from Cleveland had 
just arrived and hundreds of stalwait votei's fi'om the old '' West- 
ern Peserve" in Ohio were thronging the street to the convention, 
and whom should they meet as they came up across street but 
Joshua Giddings, that war horse of Li bert^' and their old neighbor, 
with carpet-bag in hand, just arriving from the stormy scenes, as 
their Rein'esentative in Congress at Washington. Such a I'ush 
to grasj) his hand in theirs fairly blocked up the street until he 
l)eckoned them to an o[)eu s|)ace where the multitude greeted him 
to their heart's content. 

These conventions without doubt drew together the largest 
.•,nd most intelligent and earnest body of American freemen that 
ever asseml)le(l to piotest against the domination and per[)etnitY 
of the slave power in this great republic. 

The Convention of delegates cast 46G votes and ^Lirtin A'aii 
liuren received a majority of twenty-two and John P. Hale 181. 
with manv scattering votes. The result was much regretted l)y 
the " Coiiscience Whigs," as they hoped to succeed in the nomi- 
nation of Judge McLean of (Jhio, but he sent a letter of declina- 
tion on the morning of the Convention. Mr. Hale was exceed- 
ingly popular with the Liberal Party delegates and had been 
nominated in a previ<,)us convention of the party. But as a 
satisfactory platform was unanimously adopted and positive assur- 
ance given'that Mr. Van Buren fully subscribed to it, the nomination 



23 

was iiecepted with the full ('<jiiscnt of Mi. Halo. Some old Liberty 
men with long memories and some pi'ejudice feared that the cause 
in which they had labored at great cost was paralyzed, if not 
indeed "a lost cause." The leaders from the old parties first 
gave their adhesion to the nomination. David Dudley Field, a 
young and strong '' Barnl)urner," from New York, now living, 
waxed eloquent over the nomination, beginning with a quotation 
from Kichard The Third : — 

" Now is tlio winter ol our iliscontciit 
Made ulorious .suninu'r by this Son of Yorli : 
And all the clouds that lowered upon onr liouse 
In the deep bosom of the ocean l)uried " 

Stephen C. Phillips, I think, spoke foi- the '-Conscience Whigs." 
Then a pause and silence was indeed expressive, until Dr. J.eavitt, 
in l)ehalf of the Liberty Party, rose to speak. IJe was a man of 
stalwart form, dignity of mnnner and speecli. All eyes and etus 
were attentive. He referred to the cost and saciiiice made to 
sustain the Party of Lilieity for eight years, to tlie devotion it had 
for its principles, and to John P. Hale theii- chosen standard 
lieare;', and then in tone of loftv exultation and voice of thunder 
he Qyic\\\\\\\Qi\, '''' The Liberty Party i.'f not dead hut trans/a ted.'' 
Such chee.'s and siionts as came from all parts of the hall wiien 
the Old Liberty Guard surrendered their name and their caiididati; 
for the cause were not surpassed by any of the iiK'nioitdile and 
tiirilling incidents c(jnnei-ted with this great body of eiMiiest and 
devoted men. 

After the nomination of ^'an Pjiiieii. Cliailes Fnnicis Adinns 
was nominated for Vice-Piesident with gi'cat unanimitv ;nid 
enthusiasm. The ohl }iarty (now but a memory) under its new 
name nnide great i»rogress in some of the stntes. in 1848 sixty 
Free Soil Keprescntatives wcic eU'cted to our State Legislatnic. 
Two of \our own citizens. Wil!i;;m Dodge. .Ti., ai.d \\'illi:>ni W\\\- 
cott, were among them. I now iccall the fnct tliitt Hon. -lohn P. 
King, another of your distinguished citizens, as early as 1S41 aS' 
l^resident of the State Senate gave his casting vote for a measure 
in the interest of tlie colored race and lived to be your Kejiresent- 
ative in Congress and died l)efoi'e he knew of their I't'demption 
from bondage at the south and from neglect nnd degradation in 
liie north. 

During the eight years of the l''i'ee Soil Fi)ocli very distin- 
guished men were elected to Itoth branches of Congress, some 
Governors of States and members of State Legislatures. In 1851, 
Robert Pantoul, Jr., and C-harles Sumner, Henry AVilson in 18");"), 
Salmon P. Chase, John P. Hale and otiiers to the L'nited States 



24 

Senate ; Joshua Giddings, Horace Maim and others to the House 
of Representatives ; all devoted to the abolition of slavery upon 
the National domain and opposed to its extension to the vast ter- 
ritory upon the Pacific, and so, by cutting off its supplies of virgin 
soil, to starve it out of existence. 

In 185G the Party of Liberty took another departure in the 
change of its name to that of the Old Republican Party, and by 
the nomination of Fremont, the great explorer, and Dayton, the 
statesman, as their standard bearers. The name of Fremont, the 
son-in-law of " Old Bullion," as Benton was called, was a name 
to conjure with and inspired some hope of his election to the 
Presidency. 

Although large numbers were added to the party, the hour for 
complete success had not arrived, but its speedy oncoming was 
but a question of time. 

In 1860 the time had fully come and the men appeared and 
under the banner of Lincoln and Hamlin, and by the voice and 
vote of the American people and l)y the '' favor of Almighty 
God." the pen of Lincoln and the sword of Grant, the haughty 
slave power was dethroned and the slave was free. 

And so as John Pierpont said and sung of the ballot : — 

" A weapon falls as light and still 
As snow Hakes fall upon the sod; 
Yet execntes the freeman's will 
As lightnings do the will of God." 

JNIr. Fisher's address was listened to with marked attention 

and was followed by warm demonstrations of approval from the 

audience. 

President Putnam : — The anti-slavery movement was full of 
inspiration and it was wont to voice its spirit and sentiment in 
song and poetry. We have with us here a very good friend of 
our Society, and everybody's friend, in the person of Mr. George 
B. Bartlett of Concord, who is a truly typical Concordian, and is 
not onl^' an admiralde lecturer and author, but a poet withal, 
xis 3'ou will now see. 

ORIGINAL POEM BY MR. GEORGE B. BARTLETT. 

Mu. Geouge B. Baktlett : — I have been selected for this 
task because I represent the very first town that ever sent a fugi- 
tive slave l)ack to his master, the town of old Concord, Massa- 
chusetts ! For when Rev. Peter Tliatcher of Medford lost his 
.slave, the latter, after being concealed in Cambridge, was discov- 
ered in Concord and carried back. As I always write in short 
meter I shall detain you l)ut three minutes and a quarter. (Great 



hiugliter and appliuise.) 1 luive chosen for my tlit'iiu' tlio iiiiaf^- 
iiiary audience who might l)e supposed to be listening to the 
olurious voice of the great singer who has pleaseil us so much 
this afternoon. 

IJelics of the mighty past 
Souiul the i-raud old bugle blast. 
Summon to their haunts again 
All these old historic men 
Who in Freedom's l)lackest night 
Dared to battle for the right. 
Garrison, that fortress strong, 
Kefuge sure from every wrong, 
To the shelter of whose name 
Every hunted creature came. 
Phillips, on whose silver tongu(! 
Eager crowds enraptured hung. 
Whittier, who with mystic lyre 
Quaker souls could rouse to tire. 
Sumner, whose majestic liead 
For the cause of Freedom bled. 
Andrew, who to victory sent 
Many a noble regiment. 
Craft, who stole himself away 
From the men who watch and prey. 
Burns, marched back to Southern hell, 
Fast tlie spot where Attucks fell. 
Spring's best blossoms strew his way 
Whose presence was perpetual May, 
Who with consistent courage trod 
The footsteps of the Son of God. 
Parker, with his grandsire's gun 
I'l'om the Green at Lexington 
On that '-ever glorious day," 
Eager for another fray. 
Old John Brown, uplifted high, 
Saw the glory in the sky : 
What to him were pain and loss 
When the gallows gleamed a cross I 
These and twenty iliousand more 
On the fair and shining shore. 
When our St. John strikes the chord, 
Chant tlie glory of the Lord. 
Whitest souls, with faces black. 
Fling the glorious tidings back 
From the resurrected laud, 
Free from Slavery's iron hand. 

The Ilutchiusons were now again called upon and sang witli 
all the old-time spirit and power, and amidst the greatest enthusi- 
asm, the well-remembered song. '' IIo, the Car of Kmanci|)ation," 
Mr. Hutciiinsou stating that it was written in its original form 



26 

by liis brother Jesse, diiriiig the progress of an anti-slavery con- 
vention in Faneuil Hall, and was sung by the family quartet on, 
that occasion, and at numberless meetings afterward. 

SONG— HO, THE CAR OF EMANCIPATION. 

Ho ! The car of P^inancipatioii 
Kides mMJeslic tlu'oui:li our nation, 
Beariiiii' on its train the story — 
"Liberty is a nation's glory." 

Holl it along, 

1U)II it along. 
Roll it along through our nation — 
Freedom's car, Emancipation. 



Men of various predilections, 
Frightened, run in all directions, 
Merchants, editors, phvhicians, 
Lawyers, pries^ts and politicians; 

Get out the way, 

Get out the way. 
Get out the way, every station. 
Clear the track for Eniancii)ation. 

Hear the mighty car wlieels humming, 
Now loolv out, the engine's coming! 
Church and Stati-man. hear the thunder, 
Clear the track or you'll fall under; 

Get off the track. 

Get off the track. 
Get otr the track, all are singing. 
While the liberiy bell is ringing. 

A]\ triumphant, see them bearing, 
Through sectarian rubl)ish tearing; 
The bell and whi>tle and the steaming, 
Startle thousands from their dreaming; 

Look out for the cars. 

Look out for the cars, 
Look out for the cars while the bell rings 
Ere the sound 3'our funeral knell rings. 

See the throngs that run to meet us, 
At Danvers Hall the people greet us, 
Ad takes seats in exultation 
In the car Emancipation ; 
Huirah, Hurrah, 
Hurrah, Hurrah, 
Hurrali, Hurrah, Emancipation 
Soon will bless our happy nation. 

Come on, come on, come on ! 

Emancipati'.n soon wid bless 

Our happy nation. Come on, come on, 

Come on — u — n — n — n! 



27 

It would be impossible to describe the stirring and (lirilliiig 
effect of these words, so hastily written in the long ago amidst 
the excitement of one of the old abolition gatherings " by Jesse 
himself," as they were now sung again at the Commemorative 
JMeeting. Oidy those who were present to hear them on this 
occasion, or who had heard them from the quartet during the 
great anti-slavery crusade, can fulh' realize their inspiring power, 
as thus rendered. The mention of "■ Danvers Hall" seems to 
have been luq)[)ily ir.troduced for the moment, instead of tluit of 
some other place, the singers probably having ])een accustomed 
to adai)t the line to each new locality, wlierever they ix'peated the 
verses. 

Pkksidknt PuTXAAr : — A rare treat awaits you. In one of 
the letters which our Secretary has read, Frederick Douglass i-e- 
ferred to one of the old-line abolitionists as, more than any other, 
the terror of the slave power. The veteran soldier of Freedom is 
with us today. He has been in Danvers before, and some of us 
who heaid him then, are not likely to forget his fearless and tre- 
mendous arraignments of a guilty Church and State in less )^eace- 
ful days than these. He was then a man of Avar, and you will 
hardly l)e able to recognize him in the genial and l)eaming friend 
whom 1 shall now have the honor to present to you. Not one of 
i us all is hai)pior than he, and well may he be ct^ntent and glad, 
^ilK•e he has lived to see the cause for which he so long and luno- 
ieally fought completely victorious ; and all hearts are his at 
length. Though the fierce liattles in which he engaged were so 
many, and though he is now 84 years old, you will (ind that 
Parker Pillsbury is still young, aud he is always '• Young for Lib- 
erty." (Ci'ent applause.) 

.Mr. Pillsbury, as lie r.)>e, met with a most (■nthusiastic 
ovation, and there was universal regret that his bright, pithy, 
eloquent and altogether characteristic speech was not much longer 
than it actually proved to l)e. In the course of his i-emarks he 
exhibited to the audience, as will be seen, various interesting 
mementos. 

ADDPvESS OF HON. PARKER PILLSP.URY. 

?»Ik. Pkesfdent, Ladiks and Gkntlemkn : — I think it is no 
exaggeration when I say that this is perhaps the proudest, cer- 
tainly the hapiiiest dayof my life. (Ai)plause and cries of good). 



28 

How sluill we c'om;)ensate the Dauvers llistor'usal Society :i:ul its 
excellent presid-ut for giving us this foretaste of fiiture ami tiniil 
bliss? ( AppL'ius'.'). Perha[)S among the eldest, if not t!ie vei-y 
oldest veterans of anti-slavery present, it is not iinb^'Coining in 
iiv^ to say that certainly from ni}' inmost heart and soul 1 thank 
that Historical Sov'iety. (Cries of good and api)lause). 1 hope 
it is not improper for nu to say that although tlu'^^ have greatly hon- 
ored us, I trust and t'aink they have not disiionored themselves. 
(Cries of good and applause). But, Mr. Chairman, the moments 
that are passing at this time and under these peculiar circum- 
stances, wh}', to me they are drops of time, falling into the ocean 
of eternity, more precious than all the jewels of the mines. And 
who am I, that I should by my voice liere, almost at the com- 
pletion of four score and four years — who am I that I should 
interrupt this beautiful current of thought and of music that has 
saluted our ears? I would that I were worthy of such an oppor- 
tunity and such an occasion ; but I shall keep before me the ten 
minute rule, inevitable, as seems to me, under these i)eculiar cir- 
cumstances. And first I want to say that there are those who 
have been quiet workers in the anti-slavery movement and wjio 
have survived, and who have preserved some of the relics of those 
days, and they have entrusted to me the pleasant opportunit}' and 
dut}' of calling the attention of this gathering to them. Among 
the oldest that are presented is an oldtinie daguerreotype of our 
famous friend wdiose name has not yet been spoken b^^ any who 
have preceded me — I mean George Thompson of England. 
(Loud and earnest applause). I hold here the precious shadow 
of that might}' man. When I was travelling and lecturing in 
behalf of the slave I had the opportunity to possess myself of 
soDie of the shackles which slaves had worn, and one terrible 
whip, the five thongs of which were red with blood that had been 
drawn from the backs of slaves ; and I had also shackles they 
had worn, and chains. Today I have but a single link presented 
by those same excellent women — the link of a chain that was 
worn by the slave Jerry who escaped and was finally secured by 
the abolitionists of Syracuse, N. Y., \vhere our excellent friend, 
Samuel J. May, wdiose shadow is there before you, was Unitarian 
minister. There is the link of that chain worn by that slave 
Jerry, and if you harness your havses with chains to cany a ton 
or more, they would not be larger links than that, and that link was 
only got off his limbs by a l»lacksmith's file. He wore it out of 
slavery and before he could !> ■ emancipated the Idacksmith had 
to cut it with his file because th/y hail no key to unlock the [)ad- 
lock. I have one other little memorial of slavery. The name 
has been spoken of William Craft, the fugitive slave. Here is a 



29 



picture of Willinm Craft's wife. Slie -vvas so while and so lieau- 
tiful that slie i)assed on their joiiniey from Geoijiia to Pliiladel- 
phia as the voiing son of a shivehohler, and hei' hiisliaud, wlio 
was quite a bhiek man, was her body seivaut : and as body ser- 
vant to the beautiful girl, he ennie with her safely through 
Georgia to Philadelphia. 'I'hat is ihe photograph, or rather tht; 
l)hotograph of the picture that was taken of hei'. Those of you 
who can perceive it can see that iier aim is in a sling. You know 
it was necessary for travellers living south at hotels to register 
their names. But she, a slave, knew nothing of writing. But 
re))resenting the son of a rich Georgia planter, she was of course 
expected to be educated, and her arm was put in that sling to 
give color to the pretext that she had inflammatory rheumatism 
and could not write ! She Avas so beautiful on board the steamer 
as she came up that quite a number of l)oth southern and north- 
ern young women actually fell in love with her. (Laughter and 
applause). I am glad to have found that picture, because at that 
time it was reall}' a sensation. I hope it will be copied and cir- 
culated, and I thank the^woman who brought it here and entrust- 
ed me with the pleasant duty of presenting it to this audience. 
(Applause.) Now I shotdd like to say a few words for myself, 
lint I do not ku'jw how I can, tor I shall stand in the way of 
others who have a better claim to the ears of the audience than I. 
But here I am in my native County of Essex, and 1 am hapjiy to 
say that my father and grandfather on both my father's and my 
mother's side, were also born heic in the County of Essex — a 
county that gave (iarrison and Whittier to the anti-slavery cause 
and the cause of fj-eedom throughout the world. Honor enough 
for nie to have been liorn in such a county ; and indeed my ances- 
tors from the year IG35, were all born here in the County of 
Essex. I have seen much of two hemispheres, but 1 never saw a 
county yet where I should so choose to be born as in this county. 
(Cries of good and applause). Then as to my woik in the anti- 
slavery cause. I did what I could, and 1 want to say that in the 
service, Mr. Garrison had been in the held ten years I)efore I en- 
tered. When I did come, it so hai)pened that we had an oppor- 
tunity to lay the axe at the loot of the tree, and to justify 
ourselves in so doing. Eor the honoialile .lames (i. liirney, 
whose name has been mentioned here, and so ci'cditably men- 
tioned as the (irst anti-slavery candidate for tlie presidency, Avas 
a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church and a slave-holder in 
Kentucky, a Judge of the Supreme Court of tliat Stale and so 
high in litei'ai'y culture and distinction tiial when the Pniveisity 
was instituted there, he was apiiointvd and ^i\cii carte hlanc'ie 
to nominate the otlieers of the LniviMsity. 1 should also say, 



30 

and it \v;\s the crowiiino; excelloiice in the estimation of tlic shive- 
hoUlers, tli it he was the owner of f<;ity-tw(; shives. Thns con- 
stituted and tiuis surrounded, he vv:is eneonntered 1)V one of our 
anti-slavery a<;euts whose name has been mentioned in the letters 
read, Theodore D. Weld. He encountered this illustrious slave- 
holder in Kentucky, being tiiere on some literary agency, and he 
arrested him with the question, "Where did yon get your right 
to hold those slaves?" and he did not leave that judge's ottice 
till he had nailed the truth so hard and fast to his conscience that 
he never found peace, to borrow the parlance of the church, till 
he '"found it in believing." and became a penitent slaveholder. 
The laws of Kentucky did not permit him to emancipate his 
slaves there, but he was able to bring them over the river into 
Ohio, and there he set them all free. 1 have named those con- 
siderations that gave him his distinction — his education, his 
ottice in the church as ruling elder, and high position as a lawyer 
and jurist, being a judge of the Supreme Court of Kentucky. 
But in that one act of emancipating his slaves of course he sac- 
rificed every one of those distinctions, every one; and the 
persecution that he suffered in consequence was so intense that 
it drove him and liis family out of Kentucky, and they came ovei- 
into Cincinnati. There he established an anti-slavery paj^er, 
which was three times mobbed, press and type being thrown into 
the Ohio river. The leading inliuences in those mobs were the 
church and clergy of Cincinnati and the surrounding c )untry on 
l»otli sides of the Ohio river. It resulted in this, that he went to 
Englantl and while there Avrote and published the first chui'ch 
testimony ag-.iinst slavery— a tract of 40 pages, entitled, '"The 
American Clunches, the Bulwarks of Amei'ican Slavery." Well, 
that moment I came into the anti-slavery field. That was in 
1840. From that time I date my anti-slavery convictions and 
conversion ; and, as I trust, ray sincere rep.Mitance of any ]iart I 
had had in the guilt of slaveholding. I want to say further, 
that we were logical in our conclusions. Tlic church gave us that 
premise through Judge liirney. The anti-slavery men who Ite- 
came politicians did themselves honor of course in naming him for 
the President of the United States, as has been shown here. But 
in 1840, though he received some votes from anti-slavery men for 
the presidency, he was soon dropi)ed out of sight, and certainly 
one of the most dishonorable of all the politicians that any party 
ever had, Martin Van Buren, was made his successor ! (A voice: 
That's so.) And I think our friend (xarrisoii has just illustrated, 
or rather illinnined very clearly and forcil)ly the (luality of political 
anti-slavery ever since. For that one fact, the repentance and 
redt'mption of Judge Birney, who really made a great many more 



31 

.■sacrifices for liis nuti-slaverv than even (iariiso:! could inakt,', lit- 
was iioiuinated for tlie presidency. Garrison liad no sucli sac- 
rifices to make. He had no forty-two slaves, he had no political 
eminence, nor legal standing. He gave what he had. He wa.s 
like the widow with her two mites. He gave more in himself 
than all the politicians. Bnt Judge Birney had those possessions 
-and beautifully and cheerfully and freely he laid them all on the 
;nltar of his convictions, and I do not know that he ever* forfeited 
the confidence of tlie anti-slavery people of his time. 

But 1 want to say that since that time, since that fall of 
those political abolitionists from James (x. Birney to Martin Van 
Buren. it seems to me there has been no moral conscience in this 
.country in any political party. (Laughter and applause.) I 
believe we have lost all knowledge of what right and wrong, posi- 
tive right and wrong, in the divine sense, mean ; and our trade 
.tind our commerce, our politics and our religion, are the whole of 
them, matters of convenience. And it is paying a good many of 
them a compliment to sa}' even that. (Laughter and api)lause.) 
While we just now heai'd Garrison's position, I felt almost sorry 
that it was spoken, fori wanted to speak it myself. (Laughter.) 
Oarrison took his stand and uttered his voice in memorable and 
.emphatic words; "■ I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I 
will not retreat a single inch; I will not excuse, and I ioill be 
heard." (Applause.) He was heard. (Renewed api)lause.) 
As if the Almighty who s})oke to the Hebrew prophet, had said to 
him, '"■ Go thou and si)eak my word unto them ; they will not 
hearken unto thee for they will not heai'ken unto me, nevertheless 
■^o thou and speak my word unto them, and it shall be known 
that there hath been a prophet amc.ng them." And was it not 
known? And has it not been known ever since? Bnt we have 
no such conscience since. Why, the Ba|)tist church, in its c/ose 
communion doctrine, was tiie most consistent of all the religions 
sects at that time, in the country. We always called them the 
most bigoted, Ijut they would not hold the Christian sacramental 
■communion, and did not with Free Will Baptists even any more 
than with Congregationalists, although the Free Will Bai)list8 
were all immersed as well as themselves. I am not talking of the 
sincerity of any of them. The least said about that the better. 
There is no time for it now. But they would not hold com- 
I munion with any man who had not been immersed, nor with any- 
i l)ody who wonhl hold conunnnion with anybody who had not been 
j immersed, as would and did the P'rce Will Baptists everywhere. 
1 Now yon see there was consistency, there was logic, there was a 
f carrying out of principle. We have no such thing as that now. 
1 But the Al)olitionists took the same ground that the Baptists did. 



We would not vote for :v slave holder, and we would nut 
vote for anybody who would vote foi- a slaveholder. (Laughter.) 
And we were equally logical and and consistent in all our 
chnrch relations. Garrison made himself heard. He said he 
would ])e heard and he was lieaid, and that was the reason. 
He would not go to the polls and vote, and he taught a good 
many of us, quite a good many of us who are here, and for 
forty years we did not go to the polls and vote, and I have 
never voted since, for I cannot vote any more for a gov- 
ernment that robs and taxes and enslaves my wife and daughter 
without their consent and representation. (Cries of good and 
applause-.) I have been consistent ever since. I have lived in 
Concord, N. H., since 1840, now three years more than half a 
century, and I have never seen a ballot box and never wish to 
see one. My wife, blessed be her very idea, fortunately for her 
has more to be taxed for than I have ; but she cannot vote, and 
if she cannot, I ain sure I will not. (Cries of good, and ap- 
plause and laughter.) I am going to carry the principle out. I 
will tell you one reason the temperance cause has made no better 
advance. It is older than the anti-slavery cause. It was quite a 
number of years old when Garrison commenced operations. He 
began as a temperance man before he reached the matter of 
slavery. But the cause is working its way, and see what work is 
made of it. It has had no Garrison since 1879. It has not yet 
found a man or "woman that will not budge a single inch, and will 
not excuse, will not equivocate, politically, nor religiously, nor 
in any way, and declares he will be heard. People do not know 
anything about principle, vital, moral principle ; and in the com- 
«ion parlance of the street, ''that is what's the matter." There 
is no man demanding temperance on the principle of Garrison- 
ism. There is nobody demanding woman's suffrage on the prin- 
ciple of Garrisonism that I know of. lam trying to acton that 
principle myself. 1 will not vote for any government that taxes my 
wife without representation, any more tiian I will vote for any 
government that made slavery and returned fugitive slaves. But 
I am forgetting myself. I wish I could come down to my native 
county, and give you some anti-slavery reminiscences, but I 
thank you for listening to me so long. (Great applause.) 

Pheisidknt Putnam : — However unfaithful to the interests of 
the slave were the vast majority^ of the clergy of the country, 
there were not wanting a large number of ministers who were 
among his truest friends. Of these, no one made for him- 
self a nobler record than the now very aged and greatly venerat- 
ed saint and apostle of Righteousness, Kev. Thomas T. Stone, 
1). D., of P>olton, Mass., formerly the pastor of the First Church 



33 

')f Salem, Tlu; feeble state of his healtii has pi-evented liiiu froni 
meeting you here today, but, ninety-two years old though he is, 
lie has sent us a beautiful letter, traced with his own fine, delicate 
liandwriting, which I will ask his honored son, Col. Henry Stone, 
of Boston, whom I see in the audience, to read for us. 

Col. Stone cheerfully responded to the call, and read from 
the platform, and the letter, which was listened to with deep 
interest by all present, may be found with others in another part 
of the volume. 

The speaking was then discontinued for a Ijrief time to allow 
31 r. Clark, the ph(jtogra[)her, to take a [)icture of the audience. 
The President improved the opportunity afforded while the nec- 
essary preparations were going on, to introduce to those present 
a grandchild of the venerable Theodore D.Weld, and to exhibit a 
piece of the strand with which John Brown was hung, in Virginia, 
a memento brought to the meeting by Mr. Charles Woodbury, of 
Beverly. After Mr. Clark had done his work, the Hutchinsons 
sang the following spirited song, composed by Mr. George W. 
Putnam, of Lynn, and formerly sung by them throughout tlio 
whole anti-slavery struggle and all over the North : 

SONG :— ^'THERE'S NO SUCH WOKD AS FAIL." 

[Words by G. W. rutnain. Music by Asa \i. Ilutcliiusou. Of the six 
original verses the Hutchinsons usually sang these foiu'.] 

Hidden by the slave power, 

Crushed beneath the chain, — 

Now has conic our risiug lu)in', 

Lo ! we're up again ! 

And voices from the niountaiu hciglit, 

Voices from the vah;, 

!Say for Freedom's fearless host. 

"There's no such word as fail I" 



For tliis the soii^s of liberty, 

Are ringing to the sky! 

For this upon a thousand hills 

Our lianner %vavetli high ! 

And rallying 'neatli its folds we call, 

From mountain glade and glen, 

All stern and fearless spirits forth, 

Which l)car the forms of men." 



34 

Free to speak llie biiruinif truth, 
All fcttfrless the hand.— 
Kevcr shall the Yankee's brow 
Bear the eiirsed brand ! 
Send the gathering Freemen's shout 
Boonnng on the gale, — 
Omnipotence is for us, 
"There's so such word as fail!" 

They're gathering on the mountain, 
They're gathering on the plain I 
Aud Willi the trani]) of Freedom's host 
The broad earth shakes again ! 
And this their glorious rallying cry. 
Whose tirm hearts never quail, — 
God and the People ! On for right ! 
"There's no such word as fail." 

Another song being called for from the Ilutchinsons, Mr. 
George T. Downing rose and asked permission to say a word. 
He said : — "In conversation with ^Ir. Hutchinson in the early 
stages of this meeting, we carried ourselves back to a building in 
the city of New York where the members and friends of the anti- 
slavery association used to assemble annually. At one of those 
gatherings a notorious man l)y the name of Rynders came there 
with his associates to break up the meeting. I was one of the 
number present. Mr. Hutchinson and his noble band sat in the 
gallery. The meeting became a complete scene of disorder, 
owing to the interruption of R3'nders and his gang. Without 
any announcement, the Hutchinsons rose in the audience, or 
rather in the gallery, and with their sweet voices completely 
tamed the wild beast, as I recall him on that occasion, and they 
are about to give us the same song now, which they sang then. 

Mu. Hutchinson: — It was not always convenient for us to 
be announced from the stage. AVe would manage to get among 
the audience, and when the opportunity came to do our duty, we 
did it. We did it on that occasion. It nudves me feel like 
shedding tears of joy that we were privileged to serve and even 
to suffer for the great cause of Emancipation. It was when we 
were once with William Lloyd Garrison at Portland, and when 
the mob was so noisy that nothing could be heard, and he re- 
mained silent, and they would not allow him to speak, that he 
turned and asked us to sing. We arose and sang this very song. 
I would state that, of the two members of my family who are 
with me today, my daughter takes the place of my dear sister 
who was with me singing recently at the burial of our beloved 
.John G. Whittier, who has gone to his glorious home above; 



35 

iind her IihsIkuuI wroto me a letter which I received just 
before 1 came, in wiiich he says, "Abbie aixl myself cannot lie 
with you, yet we will be with you in spirit," and I believe it is 
so. We will siniv, friends, the song >>()\i'r the mountain and 
over the moor, or "The Slave's Ai)|)eal." 

]\Ir. Hutchinson and his c impanions sang this song from t!ie 
platform, havirig sung the [irevious ones at tlu' [)ia;io I) 'low, u>Mr 
the stage. 

SONG :— -THE SLAVE'S APPEAL." 

OvLT tlie mouiitaiu and over the moor, 
Cou'cs the sad wailing' of many a slavi;; 
Tlie r.-.tlier, the iiiotlier, and ehildien are pool", 
And grieve with i)etitions tlieir froedoni to have. 

Pity, kiiiii gcuth'iueii. Crlends of huinaiiity. 
Cold is the worhl lo tlie cry of God's [x^or; 
Give us our free(h>m, ye friends of luunaMity, 
Give us our nuiits, tor we ask nothing more. 

Call us not indolent, vile and degraded, 
\Vhitk; men ha\e' roljbed us of all we hold dear; 
Parents and ehiltireu, the yoniig and the aged, 
Are .seourgetl by the lash of the rough overseer. 

Pity, kind gentlemen, friends of e(iualitv, etc. 

.And God in His mercy shall crown your endeavors, 
'I'he glory of Heaven shall be your reward; 
The pronnse of .lesns to yon shall l)e given, 
"Enti r, ye faithful, the joy of your Lord." 

Then pity, kind gentlemen, friends of Christianity, etc. 

l'nfc:sn>i:NT Pctnam : — Few are those wlx^ can say tliat they 
were present and witnessed the scene when JNIr. Garrison was 
mobbed in Boston and dragged through tlie streets to jail. Our 
revered friend, llev. Dr. (ieorge \V. l^orlei-, of Lexington, late 
President of the Historical Society of that town and so well 
known to oui- own Society to which he has rendei-ed so nnich 
'service, and to tliis neigliborhood in which he was born, is one of 
tlie number. He was a youth at the time, but his recollection of 
what he then and tliere saw is still vivid, as you may well sup- 
pose. Will he kindly tell us all about it, and tell ns, also, of his 
personal aciiuaintance with that other noble champion of Liberty, 
Nathaniel P. Rogers, of New Hampshiri' ? 

Dr. Porter received a hearty weleomi' fi-oin- the aiulieiice, 
who vveri' evidently eager t() hear about the memorabh' event from 
.an actual eve witness. 



36 

ADDRESS OF REV. GEORGE W. PORTER, D. D. 

Mk. Pwksipent, Ladiks and Gentlemen : — I \v:is most liai)py 
to respond to the invitation of 3'our president to be here today 
and to recount my recollections, tirst of a person, and secondly of 
an event, both of whicli were intimately connected with the cause 
we are here today to commemorate. In my early youth I was at 
a school in Plymouth, N. H. I found in that village a gentle- 
man and his family who took a very kindly interest in me as a 
youth, and the interest between us was mutual and grew into 
friendship. That person was Nathaniel Peabody Rogers, one of 
the i)ioneers of the cause of human emancipation — a man of mag- 
netic power, of logical mind, of fearless pen, and of great ability 
and influence in the cause which he had espoused. He became to 
me an inspiration, and my birth out of proslavery delusion into 
the light of emancipation began under his tutelage. He asked 
me to journey with him aci-oss the country some forty miles to 
the town of Canaan, where I had been a resident and where I 
think the members of this assembly will remember, an attempt 
was made to establish a school of higiier academic learning, and 
that establishment was. to be open to the colored people as well as 
to the white. Subscriptions were taken, the building was erected, 
and it was ready to l)e opened as a school of that character, when 
the feeling of the community became so aroused and the people 
became so adverse to the enterprise, that the farmers from the 
hillsides and the river banks came thei'c witli tlieir yokes of oxen 
to the number of sixty, attached them to tlie building, drew it 
away, and left it in a swamp. By doing this 1 sui)i)0se they 
thought they had put an end to all abolition movements in that 
town and community. From that moment the cause of anti- 
slavery prospered and soon became triumphant in the community. 
So that I venture to say that Avithin twenty years, possibly flf- 
teen, aftei' the date of this event, the whole community had 
changed its sentiment, and from being the advocates of slavery 
and of the ownership) of slaves in the Union, became the advo- 
cates of anti-slavery. Mr. Rogers had a history of very great 
importance in the eai-ly period of the anti-slavery struggle. His 
intluence was felt all over the state and perhaps largely over 
New F2ngland, and even beyond its boundaries. My recollections 
of him are very pleasant and only pleasant. As I said, he became 
an inspirer to me in the cause of humanity. 

I will now recount my recollections of an event. That event 
was the mobbing of William Lloyd Garrison, in P>oston, in tiie 
year. I think. 1835, and in the month of October. I, as a youth, 
was passing down Washington street and came opposite the Anti- 



37 

Slavci'Y Kooiiis, as llu\v wci't- then failed, where Mr. (Jarrison had 
fiis office ius editor of TJte JAherutor . I saw a crowd gatheriii<i'. 
I asked the meaniicj,- of it, and I was told tliat they were gather- 
ing to niol) (ieorge Thompson, a noted English advociite of 
American emanci[)ation. That mob grew very rapidly. Jt was 
made up of very respectal)le looking men outwardly. J'resently 
[ saw them entering tl»e building, which they did ruthlessly, 
loughly and violently, and then I heard that Mr. Garrison had 
I'scaped through a rear window of the building, and it was sui)- 
posed that he had gone out to escape from tlie violence of the 
mob. It was seen very soon that the tendeu -y of the mob was 
toward State Street. I was forced on with it and turned down 
State street. As I came near the corner of Wilson's Lane, I saw 
borne above tlie heads of the crowd the form of William Llo^'d 
(iarrison, with a rope around his neck. The mob was shouting 
and uttering maledictions and objurgations. It was a very 
violent crowd. State Street had already filled with a surging 
iiuiltitude. The mayor, Mr. Lyman, was at that time in the 
mayor's office, which was then in the old State House, and efforts 
-eemed to be made by the friends of humanity, if possible, to 
-ecure the safety of the victim of vio'ence by placing him within 
the doors of City Hall. That was si)eedily done. Then a carriage 
was summoned. Then IMr. (iarrison was l)rought out and put 
into the carriage, and the order was given to the driver to hasten 
with all possible speed to Leverett Stieet jail for the security of 
the victim of malice. The im[)ression this scene made upon mv 
mind was one that can never be forgotten by me. I have for tlie 
first time this afternoon had the opportunity of meeting with the 
son of that honored and illustrious father. I had no sooner seen 
him than I said he must l)e the son of his father, the resemblance 
is so strong between them. Mr. Garrison was of course in a 
state outwardl}' of great agitation. InwardU\ I trust, he had the 
peace of God and the consciousness of right within his soul. 
And as he was borne aloft his face was suffused with blood, and 
he was apparently choking under the violence of his enemies. Jn 
that way he was taken to the jail. I want yon to remember that 
the mob was not an ordinary one. It was a kid-gloved mo)), 
made np of the respectable gentlemen of Boston. Then' was no 
rough or very little lough element in it ; and as the carriage was 
ordered to drive on, these men with gloved hands held onto the 
wheels of the carriage, I'esolved that it should not go. But with 
the help of the spirited horses, the still more s[)irited driver, and 
the still more s|)irited wliip. the man concpiered and the carriage 
went on. The mob went after it. shouting to make the welkin 
ring again : Itut taking a devious course which tlie driver was 



38 

ordered to take, tlie carria;:;e reached Leverett Street jail iu safety 
and Mr. Garrison was therein safe for a while. He remained there 
until peace was somewhat restored, and was then taken into the 
country. The next morning I had occasion to go into the street 
where he lived and in front of his door there stood a gallows ! 
The house had been ill-treated during the night, and that was the 
condition of Boston, friends, in the year of grace 183;"). AVhat is 
the condition now? I venture to state that ninety-nine iiersons 
out of every hundred are today what were known ignominiously 
at that time as abolitionists and friends of the slave. So God 
works wonderful changes in the consciences and minds of men. 
Illumination takes the place of darkness, and truth the jdaee of 
error, and truth eventually under God is to conquer. (A[)plause,) 

The Puksidknt : — The most persuasive voice that was heard 
in all the troublous years we are passing in review, vvas that of 
one you have long been waiting to greet. Slie needs no inti'o- 
duction. A [)ioneer in anti-slavery work and in so many other 
great and noble reforms, she has endeareil herself to all true 
lovers of humanit}', and you will be more than glad to listen to 
Mrs. Lucy Stone. 

As one after another of these early and faithful reformers, 
so long ago famous, came forward to address the meeting, they 
could l)ut realize, ]\[r. May, Mr. Pillsbury, Mrs. Stone, and tlie 
rest, how warmly and widely their earnest, self-sacrificing and 
long-continued devotion to the service of the oppressed was 
appreciated at last. Many who were present had often heanl 
Mrs. Stone and others of the numljer plead the cause of enslaved 
men and women forty or lifty years before. It was ;i coveted 
privilege and pleasure to see and hear them again, and the mani- 
festation of delight, on the part of all, at this reappearance of the 
favorite and most conspicuous advocate of the rights of her sex, 
with her accustomed brave words and winning voice and manner, 
was unmistakable. She spoke but ten minutes, conllning herself 
strictly to the allotted time. 

ADDRESS OF MRS. LUCY STONE. 

1 should like to add one word to what Dr. Porter said about 
the way in which Mr. Garrison was carried to the Leverett Street 
jail. One of the Essex County men, James N. Buffum, told me 
that he was there at the time of the mob. He said that when he 
saw the mob getting lujld of the wheels and attempting to prevent 



30 

tlie earriagc from going, lie had a spirited horse and he drove it 
on to them, and they had to let go for their own safety or else 
^Ir, Bnffum would have run them down. What I especially want 
to speak of this afternoon is the influence Mr. Garrison and the 
early abolitionists had in the cause of women at the time of the 
auti-slavery movement. There was then no such a thing as a 
woman having any part in puljlic affairs. It was everywhere held 
that woman should be silent on such occasions, f remember 
many years ago that P21izabeth Stuart Phelps' grandfather, Kev. 
Eliakim Phelps, asked for any one to offer prayer. This was at 
the village i)rayer meeting. A woman knelt and prayed. AVhen 
she ceased Mr. Phelps rose to his feet and said very solemnly, 
" Let your women keep silence in the church." 

There was nothing like women ap|)earing in public at that 
time, though Mr. Garrison and Wendell Phillips and others were 
telling us of the woes of mothers and of little babes sold on the 
auction block. It was not ^xissible in such times for women to 
be silent. In the Friends' meetings, among the (Quakers, freedom 
of speaking has always been accorded to women. Abliy Kelly 
and the two Grimke sisters, three Quaker women, found it impos- 
sible to keep silence. I cannot tell 3^ou how it began, l>ut they 
did come into the lield of public speaking. Yet a certain class of 
abolitionists said they should not. Abby Kelly said : " Woe is 
me if I preach not this gospel of freed;)m to the slave." The 
anti-slavery society divided itself on the subject. jNIr. Garrison 
and AVendell Phillips always stood in favor of the freedom of the 
public s[)eaking of women. You can see by what Mr. Porter has 
told you, what the condition of pultlic sentiment was in regard to 
anti-slavery. These men added to that, the odium of allowing 
women to do wliat they had not been allowed to do l)efoie — to 
speak in public. I rememl)er when the sisters Grimke and Abby 
Kelly began to speak. The mob jeered at tliein and pelted them 
with bad eggs and even with stones. the ne\v>i):i[)i'is lidieuled 
them and ministers preached against them. Ahhy Ivelly once, 
in a town of Connecticut, went to church. The clergyman rose 
and took for his text, " This »Je/.el)el has come amongst us also.'* 
Then he preached a1)Out her as though she was the 
worst kind of a woman. This brave (.^uaiver woman had 
taken her life in her liands, and had gone out to hel[) free the 
slaves. 

The Women's Pights movement owes its inception to the 
anti-slavery cause. Look at the progress which has ))een made 
from the time when Abl)y Kelly was pelted with stones to the 
present time, when the women of the Columbian Fair have millions 
of dollars at their command from tlie I'nited States government. 



40 

Well, all the progress made from Al»1)y Kelly's time to this we 
owe to the anti-slavery agitation. (Applause.) I do not think 
we can conceive at this day of the condition of things then. Now 
when all doors are open to women, we Had women managing the 
temperance canse, with Miss Frances Willard at its head, with 
her great army of 600,000 engaged in the temperance cause. 
But in 1853, there was a World's Temperance Convention in New 
York. One woman, Antoinette Brown, came there as a delegate. 
And the great body of the delegates to that convention, who were 
clergymen, turned themselves into a mob to i)revent the woman 
from being heard. William Lloyd Garrison was there, and he 
said he had seen violent men in mobs before, but he had never 
seen anything like that, when for two or three days the great body 
of ministers clamored and banged with their heels and thumped 
with their canes, and did everything they could to keep a woman 
from being heard as a delegate. And in the year 1840, when 
there was a world's anti-slavery convention in London, and Mary 
Grew and Lucretia Mott went as delegates, the world's anti- 
slavery convention would not admit them, and Mr. Garrison said, 
•■'lama delegate and these women are delegates, and if they 
cannot be received I will not be." So he sat in the gallery. It 
was the play of Hamlet with Hamlet left out, for they desired Mr. 
Garrison as a delegate more than any one else. But he sat in the 
gallery, taking his place with the women. (A])planse). Yon will 
see what the condition was in those years by that very shutting 
out of women. 

Now I come to a period later than that — 1848 or 1849, or 
perhaps it was 1850. Rev. Samuel May then was agent of the 
Anti-Slavery Society. I went to Maiden to hold an anti-slavery 
meeting. That meeting took place on Sunday at five o'clock in 
the afternoon. An orthodox clergyman was asked to give notice 
of the meeting, which he did thus, "I am requested by Mr, Morey 
to say that a hen will attemi)t to crow like a cock this afternoon 
at the Town hall. All those who like that kind of music will 
attend." (Laughter.) Now you can imagine, after all these 
years of Abby Kelly and of the sisters Grimke and of the anti- 
slavery fight, what the condition was in 1850, when a respectable 
clergyman could give such a notice. You can nnagine from that 
what the anti-slavery men luul to face when they took up this 
cause. I often tlynk of Abby Kelly, — how she was hunted like a 
parti'idge on the mountain, and every woman thought she had a 
right to jeer at her. Men went with brickbats and stones to pelt 
her. T have often thought that if she had had to cut her way to 
the top of Mount Washington with a jack-knife it would have 
been an easier task than that by which she made a highway over 



41 

wliicli -woiiu'ii now walk fivfly. When Galileo diseox cred thf 
I'ottitiou of the I'urth, they piuched his flesh and he denied it, 
heeanse he could not endure the pain. Hut Al)))y Kelly for 
twenty years l)oi'e all the eruel hurt to her spirit for the sake of 
equal rights. What do we not owe to those women as well as to 
tlie men ! We can never measure what we owe. I remember 
the first time I attended an anti-slavery meeting in Boston. On 
the platform sat a woman. This was such an unheard of thing 
that I felt almost ashamed to see a woman there. It was my 
first experience. !She had on one of those bonnets that came 
away out, so that I could not see her face, and she had a pale 
blue ribbon on it and at her wrist white cuffs. 1 wished to see 
her face to know what kind of a person she was. It was Eliza 
J. Kenny of Salem ^ who acted as Secretar^^ of the Society for 
many years. The Anti-Slavery Society welcomed a woman 
to be its secretary, and helped to do away with i)rejudices. But 
the great thing the anti-slaver}' movement did was to emancipate 
the human mind. Before, everybody believed in a personal 
devil, with a hell in Avhich there was brimstone and fire ; but from 
the coming of the anti-slavery cause that movement set us free to 
question even the things held most sacred. When people said 
the Bible sustained slavery, Theodore Parker said "So much 
the worse for the Bible." The question had been opened 
whether tlie Bible Avas all that it claimed to be. We were taught 
that there was no thing and no claim, however sacred, which we 
iiad not the right to question. So this result of the anti-slavery 
movement was worth more to the world than even the freedom of 
the slave. 

Mr. President, I thank 3'ou and the members of the Daiivi-rs 
Historical Society for the oi)portunity you have given int- to come 
here and say a word and to look into the faces of tliose wlio are 
here. There are many wrinkled faces; yet many of us l>egan 
with roses in our cheeks. Today we come young at se\-enty-f<>ur, 
young at eighty-four, and determined, as long as we can, to work 
to the end. (Great applause.) 

The President next introduced Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz, 
author of many interesting l)Ooks and stories, and proiniiiciit in 
the Women's pAlucational & Industrial Union, of ISoston. "Her 
work," he said, "in numerous departments of usefulness, has 
resulted in a great deal of good, and promises to result in a great 
deal more. She will tell us something, I trust, of the Plymouth 
fil)olitionists, as she is a daughter of one of tlie most noted and 
worthy of them." (Api)lause.) 



42 
ADDRESS OF MRS. ABBY M. DIAZ. 

1 sliould like to say that a great many women here and else- 
where, engaged in money earning, have not the slightest idea 
how largely these extended opportunities have been made pos- 
sible to them by the woman who has jusi, sat down. I think I 
shall introduce myself as a relic of the anti-slavery times. I 
know that relics are looked upon not at all with envy, rather with 
pity ; l)ut I, as a relic, look with pity on the younger people here 
who did not have the opi)ortunities which we had of being edu- 
cated in princii)les. I am a relic, for one thing, of a Plymouth 
Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society, of which I was Secretary, — a relic 
of some Plymouth school girls who had become skilful in anti- 
slavery argument, and who circulated anti-slavery petitions on 
their way to and from school. Tlie anti-slaver}' reading room 
was our daily stopping place. It was a free thought social 
centre. Tlie sign of tliat anti-slavery room was mobbed and had 
the honor of being coated with tar. I am also a relic of an anti- 
slavery meeting held in Plymouth in an obscure church, the only 
one attainable. The meeting was mobbed, stones being thrown 
through the window. M3' father went to the sheriff, but the 
sheriff did not care to do anything about it. Then I am a lelic 
of a party who went on to New York at one time in a steamboat, 
at the time when so many had been aroused by the enthusiasm of 
John A. Collins. The Graham boarding house engaged for the 
delegates would not contain us. We arrived in the morning 
earl}', and were sent to the St. John's Hall to get our breakfast, 
because the Graham boarding house could not take us in. But 
Ave had Graham fare. There were tables set np and down the 
hall and we had dishes of mush and other rations. There we 
took our breakfast. In tiie afternoon we ascended to an upper 
loft and partitioned it off with our shawls, so as to spend the 
night there, feeling it a great wonder that an}' owner would let 
xis into his building. But later this owner came in great agita- 
tion, and said tiiere was danger tliat the hall would be burned, 
and that we would have to go somewhere else. We picked up 
all our belongings and set forth. A crowd assembled in the 
street as we went out, and we heard the men say "^Vhy, tliere 
are some very good looking women among them !" We did not 
know what to do when we got into the street. It was night, but 
darkness only added to the delight of the youngest of the party, 
because it was something very romantic to be thrown into the city 
streets late at night, and not to know where to go. We tried a 
great many places but nobody would receive anti-slavery people. 
At last we were taken in where we smelled supper getting ready. 



43 

"We noticed some whispered coufereiiees and pi-eseiitly liie iniid- 
lady caine to us and said, "I cannot keep you. I sliall lose 
every boarder I have iu the house if you stay. You will lia\e to 
go." So we had to put on our things at nine o'clock at night 
and go forth again into the streets oH a sti'ange citv. At last in 
a tenth rate l)oarding house — it was very tenth rate — we ohtainctl 
permission to stay, though rathei- than go to bed we lay down on 
the outside. There was one thing you can have no idCa of. It 
was the enthusiasm, the utter devotion to the canse, of the 
young people of those days. Just as other yonng giils — " the 
world's girls" — looked forward to ))alls and parties and talked 
about their beaux, we of the anti-slavery cause looked forwaiul to 
anti-slavery conventions, reckoned ui) the days that would elapse 
before the next, talked about the speakers, doted over The 
Liberator and sonie of us ate our l)rea(l bare of butter to save up 
money to i)ay half our weekly subscription to the Anti-Slavery 
Society, and knitted cotton garters to make up the other half, 
going around anil selling them to get the necessary quarter a 
week. All we had a desii'e for was to put what money we cc'uld 
save into the contiibution box. If any one of us had owned a 
watch it woukl have gone into the l)ox. But this w(juld n(jt have 
l)een a sacriiice. It was a most delightful thing for us to do, 
and we were so absorbed iu anti-slavery work that we had no 
wish for anything else. I rememlter that two girls wer(> sent to 
Boston. Their mother had given them money to buy some 
shawls. ''Now," she said, '••I want yon to buy good shawls." 
So they |nit nearly all their money into the contribution box, and 
went back with very [Xjor shawls, to the great disgnst of their 
mother. 

There is one other thing that the anti-slavery people \vxxv. 
done; they have given us lal)or-saving tools. As JMarcus Anto- 
ninus says : '-As physicians have always instruments ready for 
any case which may suddenly recpiire their use, so do tluni have 
principles ivad}' for the understanding of things divint- and 
hu!nan." I call principles labor-saving, Itecause when any (jues- 
tion comes up they save the labor of spending an}' time in talking 
about probal)le results, in consulting l)ooks, iu listening to any- 
body in anthoi'ity, whether iu church or state. All you have to 
do is to bring that question to the jiulgment-seat of principle, and 
it is decided. The anti-slavery leaders taught us the use of 
these labor-saving tools, and 3'ou will fmd them very effective in 
shortening the duration — and the speeches — of 3'our conferences 
and convent ions. The AVoman's Suffrage question would be 
settled in this wav in al)out live minutes. Woman's Suffrage is 



44 

not anything ditlicult after we have worked on anti-bhivery. l"he 
rights of one human being decided, then follow rights U)i- many 
and all luinian beings. The Woman's Suffrage question is 
liecided on the i)rinciple of individual right of judgment and of 
settling matters of duty for one's self. I can jjrove that the 
anti-slavery people were not agitators, but that on the contrary 
those who opposed them were the agitators. The principle is this : 
As truth is infinite the human perception of truth must always be 
a progressive one. That being so, progress is in the divine 
order. That lu'ing so, those who wish to progress are in the 
divine order. The divine order was from slavery to freedom, and 
those who went on in this divine order were going on in the right 
way. Those who stopped them made the agitation. A stone in 
a stream makes more fuss and agitation than all the little boats 
that tloat with the stream. Thus 1 have proved to you by prin- 
ciples that the anti-slavery people were not agitators, but that 
those who opposed them were agitators. Then there is another 
principle to be considered, namely, that every new idea or every 
new presentation or plan has rights we are hound to respect. 
One of those rights is a careful investigation without regard to 
anybody's opinion, our own included, or to any authority how- 
ever high and without regard to existing conditions. It must 
not be decided by any of these ; it must just be brought down to 
a principle. And remember that ''the new must be established 
in terms of the new." Also, that because a thing cannot Vie 
(lone now is no reason that it can never be done, and that 
the improbable is not on that account impossible. This Co- 
lumbian era is a good time to say that. It was very imiirob- 
idde, all that came from what Columbus did, but although 
imi)robable, it has proved to be possible. One strange thing 
I have seen among people who have in a manner been liberated 
by these principles. I have seen it in the narrowness of liberal- 
ism as well as in the narrowness of conservatism ; that when 
people have progressed a certain distance they say it is the end — 
thus far and no farther. The next thing that conns up they are 
not willing to accept or to thoroughly examine. They think they 
liave got all there is. JNIany lil)eral people are more bigoted and 
narrow than conservatives. I have in my mind some very liberal 
and progressive people who have turned aside from tilings they 
were not familiar with, condemning without full investigalion. 
(Applause.) 

Here Mrs. Diaz found her time had elapsed. 

Letters of great interest were here read from Kev. R. S. 
8t0!rs, D. D., Kev. Robert Collyer, Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher 



45 

and Mis. Curuliue II. Dall, after wliicli the I'lXbident intiodiieed 
Rev, Aaron Porter of East Alstead, N. H., the son of Hathorne 
Porter, one of the original and most deserving of the old Danvers 
abolitionists. -'Some of the latter, by way of lidienle, were 
called 'The Seven Stars', by their proslavery neighbors. Per- 
lia[)s onr friend, whose father was one of the saered number and 
who well remeinl)ers these lights of former days and other hunin- 
aries witii them, will let ns know how bright they were then aiui 
how tlie}' have slione since." (Cordial greeting.) 

ADDRESS OF REV. AARON PORTER. 

JMk. President : — I ftdly agree with the statement aheady 
made, that we are too near in time to the early abolitionists to 
dispassionately j'ldge them on their methods. We are neither 
artists designing nor skilled workmen Imilding their monument. 
We are onl}' burden-bearers, bringing each one his share of the 
raw material which he hopes will have its i)laee in the finished 
structure that we are all sure the providence of God will cause to 
be raised to their honor in the future. All who nj) to this timo 
have l)een mentioned here are such as lived and wrought away 
from Danvers. iMine is the work of speaking a word for tlios( 
Avho in this imuiediate locality — yes, within tlie circuni>crilie<.l 
Itoundaries of "Danvers Neck" — illustrated tiieir own peculiar 
anti-slavery faith, in everyday life : lieing "come-onters" fi'om 
church and state alike, accoiding to tlieii' own designation of 
themselves, and constituting according to the (lesignati<:)n of 
others, the "Seven Stars" and the nucleus of the "School House 
Gang." When I first heard the terms "Seven Stars" and 
"School House Gang." my father read them aloud from a letter 
just received from William Endicott, while we were living in 
what is now North Randolph, Vt., where I lived for three years. 
Subse(|ueutly it was exi)lained to me that the "Seven Stars" were 
represented by the following names : — .John Hood, Richard Hood, 
Jesse P. Harriman, John Cutler, William Endicott, Joseph 
^lerrill, Hathorne Porter. In his answer to William l^iidicott's 
letter my father wrote the following, which I extract from tiiat 
very letter, kindly loaned tome by Mrs. Henry Hyde of Darners, 
herself a daughter of William Endicott. 

East RANnoi.rii, \''r., July 11, INJI. 
FuiKND Endicott: — I receiveil your welcome letter of tlie 
."»th iiist. and was highly interested in perusing your vivid di;- 
.scri[)tion of the scene in the anti-slavery meetings. If I undt-r- 



40 

stand correctly, those throe meetings took pliu-e on the even- 
ings of the Hi-'^t three days of July. I trust tile ••Seven Stars" 
8huae witli greater brilliancy on those nights and added new 
lustre to their accninnlated radiance. I hope also tliatthe "•Seven 
Stars" have heeonie fixed stars, fixed in the eternal [)rinciples of 
liberty, of truth and of humanity, and that they will continue to 
let tlieir light siiine to clieer the down trodden — lights to illumine 
the dark ways of oppression, and aid the children of adversity. 
This appellation, ••Seven Stars," although intended as a term of 
reproach, will ere long be considered a title of honor. I had 
much rather be found with this faithful "Seven" who o[)pose 
American slavery and act consistently with their piinci|)les, than 
to be found applauding or approbating those who in 177G declared 
that all men were born free, and of right ought to be free ; and 
at the same time held hundreds of men in the most abject slavery. 
Reckon me then as among the '•'Seven Stars," with all the aliase>< 
annexed. Well, I am delighted with your report. I have some 
idea of how Harriman looked when he made the charge of voting for 
men thieves. 1 congratulate him and Bro. Hood and Sister Hood 
in their self-em r,U'ii)ation from the corruptions of a in-oslavery 
church. Where and liow is Bi'o. Cutler, the longest "star" in the 
whole constellation? L.'t us hear about him in v'oui- next. How 
pleased I should be, had I been present. It would have done my 
heart good. Anti-slavery here in Vermont gains moderateU\ 
Although it is the busiest time of the year, 3'et there have been 
recently four or five conventions of al)olitionists in this region, 
but I was unable to attend them. The tinn' foi' lalior in the 
cause here, is in winter when people are at leisure and when it is 
better travelling over these hills and mountains. There is indif- 
ference, perha[)s ignorance, on the snl)ject of slavery here, but not 
that bittsr opijosition — that determination to st )p free discussion, 
which we have frequently seen exhibited even on old Danvers 
Neck. Here are no nu)bl)ings nor threats of mobbing, and there 
is not a church for miles around our region but wouhl be freel}' 
granted for the diseussiou of al)olition. if applied for. I have 
been invited to lecture in the IJrooktield nu'eting house all day of 
a Sunday, and 1 think I shall try it in about tin-ee weeks. Bro. 
Henry C Wright [)aid us a short visit and left last Monday for 
Bost'):i. I hive ten th :);rsaud (jiiestions to ask y.)U, which 1 must 
defer. 

Youi^s for luimanHy, 

Hathounk roKTicii. 

Such were the " Seven Stars," as nearly as I can remember ; 
but tiie.e come to me the nanus of others who were as worthy as 



47 

these, i)erlia[)s, for the roll of honor. The early abolitionists 
were religious — profouiidly and spiritually so — as religious ;is 
Carver, or Biailford, or Winthrop or any of tlu; I'uiitans. As 
religions as Lnther, or Melancthon, or ZwingU or any ot the 
Protestant reformers ; and so far as they were critical, and 
destructive and narrow, they were like all Pro-test-ants of every 
age. 80 religious and sincere were they that tliey made the mis- 
take of thinking that essential religion could live by its own inher- 
ent and spiritual warmth without the aid of an>/ extraneous forms. 
They said and rightly, that the common anti-slavery convention 
was a religious meeting ; they said further, — and here the}^ were 
mistaken, — that the religious forms of a religious meeting could 
take care of themselves ; and so it came about, at last, that while 
provision was made beforehand, as to who should address the 
meeting, the matter of vocal prayer was left to be exercised on 
the spur of the moment, l)y any one who might volunteer so to 
do when the managers of the meeting announced the opportunity. 
Of course it soon followed that the opportunity was seldom im- 
proved. While I was away for tliree years in Vermont, occurred 
the intrusion of Beach and Foster and others upon the usual 
worship to deliver their testimonies for the slave, an intrusion of 
which many abolitionists — [)rominent among them. Garrison and 
AVendell Phillips — did not approve. Then also occurred for a 
short time, probably a year or so, the regular meeting on the 
Lord's day of these Danvers abolitionists in the school house, and 
hence the term, tiie '•'•School House Gang." These meetings 
were at first opened with reading from the Bible, and with [)rayer. 
But soon these were discontinued, because they were regardetl as 
formal, while the addressi's and exhortations were consid- 
ered practical. John Peed, one of the "Come Outers," was 
about my age, and when I leturni-d from Verintjiit he was slowly 
dying of consumption. lie imd I talked over these tilings, and 
both of us wislied the abolition meetings had kept in our time 
the old religious feature of tiie formal worshi[). .John grew sicker. 
One night I sat U|j with him in company witli his brother Augus- 
tus. How I longed to say something religious to iiiui in (Con- 
nection with our devout anti-slavery feelings and hopes, but I 
was dillident and reticent and felt that his brother would not sym- 
l)athize with our views, and i)ossibly it might not be best. But I 
have been sorr}- that I did not, ever since. At his funeral the 
minister toUl of his recent cc^nversion to Clirist on his dying bed, 
after the fashion of the denomination to which his family belonged. 
Was not .Tolui converted to Christ when week by week he gathered 
witii the '• Come Outers" to remember those in bonds as botnid 
witli them, in the spirit of him who said, Inasnui^h as ye have 



4S 

done it, or done it not unto one of the lea^^t of these my brethixMu 
ye have done it or done it not unto me. 

And here I wish to put in a few renuniscences of the " Old 
Anti-Slavery Days." The order in which I mention thenv is of niy 
own memory, and may not be ehronologieally correct. 

My earliest anti-slavery remembrance is of coming honir 
from school and tinding that Rev. Alexander A. St. Clair, agent 
of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was being entertained at 
my father's house. Nest 1 remember a meeting for forming a 
Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society, held in the house of Richard 
Hood. He and Rev. S. Brimlilecom. the Uuiversalist minister, 
were the only adults present. The former offered prayer at thr 
commencement and the latter at the close of the meeting. Next 
is the coming of the Grimke sisters to advocate anti-slavery vitw- 
in the Baptist meeting house on a week day. They were born in 
the south and had emancipated their inherited slaves. The meet- 
ing-house was crowded. Nest is an anti-slavery library, ke[it 
over A\ illiam Alley's tailor shop, open every Saturday evenings 
with Alfred Ray Porter for librarian. He was my uncle, and 
often did I, at his request, officiate in his place. Then I remem- 
ber one or two anti-slavery conventions held in the Baptist meet- 
ing-house on week days. Then the coming of the ''Liberator." 
followed all too soon by a rival sheet, the '-Emancipator," and 
then the "Xew Organization" with the woman question and the 
Sabbath question and the voting question ! I suppose all the>e 
questions and discussions and cleavages were somehow necessary. 
They always have been. They came when Christianity separated 
from Judaism. They divided the church into Jewish Christians 
and Gentile Christians in Paul's time. They divided the chureli 
when Luther came. From them were evolved the Puritans and 
the Pilgrims. They are with us now in the "new departure" of 
modern Congi-egatioualism and Presbyterianism. They still 
abide, but they do grow less bitter and vmchristian. May the>e 
features of them disappear altogether in future progress. Whit- 
tier was on both sides after the division. So I suppose were 
Pierpont and John T. Sargeant and Dr. Hunt and John A. Inuis. 
But can a man be rightly on both sides? I think he can, when, 
as was the case with the early abolitionists, the dift'erences con- 
cern only methods of action and do not involve fundamental prin- 
ciples. I think there is a sense deep, true, spiritual, holy — in 
which Paul's saving about being '' all things to all men that some 
may be saved" is to be apprehended and studied and practiced in 
conduct very Christian indeed. Paul was not a time-server I 

I have followed with appreciation and interest the paper of 



49 

my friend. Mv. (Janibou, in vindicalion of iiis iioimri'd father's- 
Christian courage and logical consistency timing those evil days 
when he stood so stoutly for the eternal righteousness. Uut the 
foundations on whicli the early alx litionists themselves Wuildcnl 
were deeper and firmer than logical consistency or courage. They 
were, for their time, the true, the real church I And one's- 
motive, purpose, spiritual desire, religious aim, must determine 
his anti-slavery standing. Before the inward majesty of these 
tests the verbal repudiation of church and state becomes external 
and incidental. Among the abolitionists arose a little company 
that declined to use the products of slave labor, pai'ticularly cot- 
ton. Mv. Garrison by one ex cathedra paragraph in his '-JJber- 
atov" op[)osed their course and annihilated their organization. 
But why was not their aim as obvious and practicable as the 
moral battle cry, "No union with slaveholders":"' Not that I 
condemn Garrison. I only seek to vindicate some whose methods 
he condemned. I, myself, heard iStei)hen S. Foster declai'e iu 
Citizens' Hall, on Danvers Neck, '-No man is an abolitionist 
unless he belong to the American Anti-Slavei'y Society or to one 
of its auxiliaries." Much as I would like to do it, 1 know no 
process of abstract reasoning or method of concrete devotion to 
those whom he represented, which can i)urify his saying from all 
taint of a bigotry and sectarianism as intense as any that has 
ever tainted ecclesiastical declarations. There is a moral and 
spiritual i)arallax for whicli we must make allowance ere we can 
determine the heavenly position of the ''Seven Stars," and when 
we have determined it, as high as they, will shine such local 
abolitionists as Ur. Hunt and John A. Learoyd, to say nothing of 
snch distinguished abolitionists as Kev. Charles Turner Torrey, 
who died in the IMaryland State Prison, where he was confined 
for aiding slaves to escape ; James (i. Birney, first and only can- 
didate of the Liberty party for the Presidency of the United States ; 
Lysander Spooner, who tried hard to make the Natio)ial Constitu- 
tion what only the logic of the slaveholder's rebellion could 
make it — an anti-slavery document. And this the slaveholder's re- 
bellion did through the rendings of the civil war, thus enabling the 
si:)iiit of the framers of the constitution to shine through the letter 
of their iunnortal production. (Applause.) 

The President next called upon Mr. (Jeorge W. Putnam, of 
Lynn, as still another of the tried and honored veterans, who, 
from the beginning to the end, had been associated with the great 
anti-slavery leaders, and had done much and suffered not a little 
in behalf of the righteous, but once unpoi)ular cause. ]Mr. Put- 



50 

aiani, also, was warmly received. The audience had already 
heard the Iliitehinsous slug one of his old Liberty songs. 

ADDRESS OF MR. GEORGE W. PUTNAM. 

Gray-haired and bent with age — we, a portion of the vet- 
erans of the "old guard of freedom" who still linger on earth, 
have come here today by the kind invitation of the Dan vers His- 
torical Society, to exchange our last greetings, and, with our 
rfellow citizens to commemorate the most sublime event in human 
liistory, the a1)olition of American slavery and the emancipa- 
tion of four millions of chattel slaves ! Go back in memory only 
some sixty years and call to mind that, at that time, two and a 
half millions of slaves were held in bondage by a nation which 
made the heavens and earth resound with its boasted love of 
liuman freedom ; a nation which stood forth a colossal hypocrite 
before the world; a nation whose ''religions sense," the founda- 
tion of all human advancement, had been so long perverted by 
slavery, that it had well nigh become extinct; a nation whose 
Congress, state legislators, pulpit, forum, bar, press and people 
were all arrayed against the idea of the emancipation of the slaves 
of the country, then counted by millions, the most honorable ex- 
ceptions to this !)eing very few and far between. These things 
are hard and unpleasant to think of and to say, but we, the mem- 
bers who remain on earth of that "old ouard of freedom," stand 
today too near cur own graves to be willing to falsify history or 
to flatter anybody. ButT still let me say, I have spoken of these 
dark facts of the past mainly to impress on your minds the 
tremendous nature of that undertaking which sought, with 
every adverse element possible existing, to accomplish the stu- 
pendous work of the emancipation of the enslaved millions of 
America and by so doing to save a grand nation — the light and 
iiope of the earth — from the inevitable perdition to which it was 
rapidly hastening. AYho were the wretched victims in the case? 
I answer — they were the most poor, ignorant, degraded and help- 
less human beings on the face of God's earth ! They had no 
grand history, no literature, no art, no civilization like tliat of 
Greece and Rome to fall back upon. Nothing in fact to arouse 
the iutei-est and awaken the enthusiasm of the intelligent world 
in their behalf. Seized and brouglit to this land and enslaved ! 
A hundred and more years of suffering, wretchedness, toil and 
degradation had been their lot at the time that the ''yeomen went 
;to Concord" on that never to be forgotten April morn and inaug- 
urated that '"Great Revolution" which created this nation and 
made it free and independent, but which, sad to say, Ijrought to 



51 

tlio faithful I'hicki? who li:i(l done their pait well in the wnr for 
Independence, no relief from their chains and their degradation 1 
A few atteiut)tis at insnrrection were afterward made hy them, but 
they had failed and the insurgents were terribly punished. Occa- 
sionally some humane soul spoke a word for the slave. Jefferson 
said: '•! tremble for iny country when I remember that (lod is 
just, and that His justice will nc^t sleep forever!" The good 
ijenjamin Lnndy and a few others made some efforts for tlie 
gradual enn\ncii)ation of the slaves. l)Ut they had but little success. 
About the year 1820 Rev. Samuel Worth was imprisoned in 
Kentucky for preaching the right of th;' slaves to their freedom. 

"l")arkiiess coverefl all the lanl 
Ami jir()s> il;irkiie>s tlic ) eoplf." 

when in the year 1830 — a year never to be forgotten in the hi>- 
tory of the world — a young man named William Lloyd (iariison 
opened at Boston his thunder batteries upon chattel slavery, and 
ai'oused the monster and its adherents north and south to ilh- 
tiercest rage. Never will be forgotten the words of that yoinv^ 
man when lu' said : — "I am in earnest! I will not excuse! I 
will not equivocate ! 1 will not I'etreat a single inch and I will be 
heard !" and then in the name of God and humanity demanded 
the immediate emanci|)ation of the American slaves. Very 
slowly came the friends (jf liberty to his support, but those 
who came were giants in their way, and the slave power south 
and north soon learned that Garrison and his faithful ones 
"meant business." Of the storms of rage, of the mobbing, 
rioting and murder, yon all know well, and 1 need not 
recapitulate them here. The abolitionists were in earnest, and 
reacliing far down into the darkness where lay the wretched 
slaves, thev said, 'H)uis is a death grip! Take hold of our 
hands, ami, Hoil helping us, we will l)ring you up to light, life 
and liberty !" 

What was the chaiacter of these early abolitionists? Were 
they all harmonious in their views and (lid they always agree? 
l»y no means. On the contrary, like all reformers who amount 
to anything, they had their sharp angles of character, and they 
disputed vehemently over the ways and means of cari-ying on 
their warfare with slavery. Some of them declared it the height 
of sinfulness to vote under the constitution of the United States, 
and others declared it a crime not to do so, and in their contro- 
versies they were often very sharj) and severe npon each other. 
They reminded oiu^ strongly of the army of Cromwell. His sol- 
diers were terribly in earnest and were '"Theologians" to a man. 
By the light of their cami) fires they read their llibles, and they 



52 

disputed violently in relation to tlie doctrine^; which they held of 
"■election," '•stmctitlcation," -'buptifem," "oi'iginal sin," etc. 
Their disputes were many aud violent. "But when the trumpet 
sounded, they all went up to Naseby together!" So with the 
abolitionists; they disi)uted vehemently, earnestly and honestly 
in relation to the means of doing the great work they had under- 
taken. Hut every man and every woman had a dagger of some 
shape ready for the heart of slavery, and wlien tlie hour came 
they drove it to tlie iiilt ! The abolitionists earnestly desired that 
slavery should be al)olished without bloodslied ; but another and 
a higher power ordained it otherwise. 'J'he hour of I'etribution 
of which Jefferson had spoken had come at last, when for the 
bouudless wrong and unspeakable oppression of the slave, the 
guilty south and guilty north had the "cup of trembling" present- 
ed to their lips by the hand of God, and were made to drain it to 
the dregs. Sad, indeed, it is to remember that the human race 
learn no lessons of justice unless they are written in human blood. 
We saw the vast paraphei'ualia of war gatliered in our streets, in 
our valleys and on our hillsides. We heard the peal of thousand 
bugles, the roll of thousand drums ! The parks of artillery 
thundered along our highways aud the suidight, fn^n morn till 
night, flashed back fiom the loug, long lines of northern stee! 
gleaming on its southward way. We saw that uiispeakablj 
grand array, 

'•When the northern states, like giants, 

.Southward moved in awful form, 
With voices of all nature 

And God, behind the storm I" 

what turn the armed millions gathered to the "Armageddon," the 
great battle of God Almighty. And then, when the salvation of 
the Union was accoinplishecl, when the earth and ocean had been 
reddened by the blood of white and of colored men, also, for they 
had done their part nobly on land and sea, the wide earth 
resounded with the crash of breaking chains, and the astonished 
nations saw four millions of most wretched aud abject human 
slaves, slaves, come up from the pit of despair and. crossing as of 
old a crimson sea, take their places before the world, free men 
and free women forever! As to the noble character of the race 
thus redeemed fiom slavery, I have not time, nor words, even if 
I had the time, ade(piately to express it. Scarcely had the sound 
of clanking chains, the shrieks of the victims under the lash and 
tlie cries of the wretched ones separated at the auction block die*! 
away, when we saw, with astonishment, these newly emancipated 
slaves, slaves, in the schools aud colleges of the land ; many of 



tiiesi' victims of :sl;iV(M'y with tlu> iiiniks of the hisli and tiu' hi'and- 
iuo-iron still ui)on tluMii, taking their places in the pulpit, the 
halls of leoislatioii, in Congress, at the b:ir, in the jury l)ox and 
un the jtidieial iH-iich, and already vast amounts of wealth, hon- 
estly aecpiired. in theii' possession. Nothing like this has the 
world ever liefore witnessed. The colored lace has shown a 
^ireatness of chaiactei' and an innate power to rise from the load 
t>f cruel and ini.>("ial)le oppression which no words can fullv 
vxpress. And now for myself and all the old aliolitionists pres- 
ent and absent, I would say that to each of us the iemeinl)rance, 
that in the hour of darkness when there seemed to be no help, 
(iodgave us strength to espouse the glorious cause of emancipa- 
tion, and to rally with that "hope forlorn of lil)erty" which gath- 
ered upon these northern hills, is now, in our old age, the sweet- 
est recollection of our lives. It was, indeed, but a cup of cold 
water which w'e had to give the wretched outcast, the chattel 
slave, but God knows it was given freely and with pure intent. 
A word more and I have done. There is a grand and glorious 
nation, the light and hope of the world, yet to be saved ! The 
emancipation of the four millions of slaves, great as it was, after 
all was only the prelude of that unspeakably mighty wcnk of sav- 
ing this nation from destruction I Had slavery continued there 
had been toda}' eight or nine millions of slaves ui our land and 
t-lie doom of our nation had been sealed forever. The tyrants of 
Ihe old world are eagerly watching and longing for our downfall. 
IJut it must never come ! This nation, again and again blood- 
bought, must fulfil the high destiny which the hand of God has 
marked out for it. The great struggle for human liberty must 
still go on. The blood shed u[)on hundreds of battlefields from 
Lexington to Yorktovvn, from Sumter to the Appomattox:, nnist 
not have been shed in vain. 

riiESiUENT PcTNAJi : — We shall now have the |)leasui'e of 
hearing Mr. Downing, of Newpoit, K. 1., a colored gentleman 
who will very fitly represent his race in our meeting toda}'. We 
<;ould not think of holding a meeting like this, without some words 
from such a source. Known to all anti-slavery people, Mv. 
Downing is sure of your sympathetic interest l)eforehand, and 
ke always has something worthy to say. (Earnest a[)plause.) 

ADDKESS OF IMR. GEOIJCJE T. DOWNING. 

When I got the invitation from the Dan vers Society I sat 
t^own and wrote a few remarks, knowing that there would be little 
time on such an occasion. I wrote my remarks down so as not 

to 1)(' led off bv the thought suggested bv such a gathering as this 



54 

and that I might keep within the lines allotted to the several speak- 
ers. Aside from these remarks, I want simply to state that, 
while I am presented as a representative of the race that were 
freed through the efforts of the anti-slavery society, I myself was 
born free. Yet I feel that 1 may assume to myself the duty of 
s])eaking in behalf of the millions in the South who were once 
.slaves, but who are now emancipated, and to say as their mouth- 
piece that they feel grateful for youv work in their behalf. 

M}' friends, I am here at your nivitation, but not with that 
lightness of heart and freedom from care with which in all proba- 
bility most of you have come; I come not with the fitting pleas- 
ure with which I would have come, but fur a circumstance, — the 
n)ost sad of all sad events that have occurred within many 3'earg 
of wedded bliss. I come in part to obtain some relief, 1 come, 
shall 1 not say, for au honora])le diversion ; to mingle with those 
having joyous feelings in connection with a moral accorai)lishmenl 
that reflects hon<M" ; tliat affoi'ds sweet satisfaction. IM}' thoughts 
cari'y me in the direction of cemeteries, of monuments, of caskets 
which contain the remains of beauty, associated with love, witlt 
elevated viitues and most tender concern. But in my trend I 
stop — and worship at shrines that bring up happy lecoUections as 
to devotedness to truth and justice ; to a self-sacrificing spirit^ 
even unto martyrdom. I bend lowly on my knees on the grass, 
at this season of the violet and the lily, over spots where lie Gar- 
rison, Phillips, Sunnier, Wliittiei', John Brown, Walker, JNlay, 
Nell. Hayden, and other valiant defenders of the right; and 
dwelling there find an inspiring feeling come into me. 

Our gathering of a small remaining part of the old anti- 
slavery guard is in many respects cheering. AVe can point to 
accomplishments, to having freed not only a race which is i)art of 
the nation from unjust servitude, but to the disenthralment of all 
its people; to their l>eing freed from accountability in connection 
witli a great and blighting sin that was upon the nation. It must 
not be foigotten in transmitting to our children that of which we 
are proud, that the obligation is upon us to consider not simplv 
that our work, so far as it has gone, is highly connnendal)le, but 
further, whether it is complete, I lead the Constitution of the 
American Anti-Slavery Society ; it tells me that all who allied 
themselves thereto pledged their lives and their sacred honor not 
only to lal)or without tire for the abolition of slavery, but to aid 
in passing the Freedman along and upward on the line of man- 
hood and elevated citizenship without which attainment he is not 
in reality free. When William Lloyd Garrison and his followers de- 
clared for no alliance with political parties, because of a Slieolic 



00 



agreement true of these parties, I admired their coiisistenev ; hnv 
Avhen one is found outside of this fold and enters a politieaf arena 
lie can be justified as a moral adherent to party only in consider- 
ing what is politic in aid of what is light. 

I observe a party which has been regarded as being most 
deeply dyed in wrong, attracting to it as a reform party the sons 
of old abolitionists ; a party to be made by tlie infusion of this 
young and fresh blood not only the defender of equality before 
the law, but the main guard of other just reforms. fliere is hope 
in the fact ; there is satisfaction in its having selected as its chief 
executive a man who dares have convictions and to act thereon. 
I may have been wrong in ad\ocating him ; I may have been 
worthy of the censure that has been abusively used, but I have 
my convictions as to the same ; 1 glory in them. I am willing to 
have them recorded with the rest of my anti-sin vcrv I'ccord" of 
which I feel proud. (Loud applause.) 

TiiK Piu:sii)ENT : — Mr. Downing was born free and was 
never a slave. Rev. Peter Kandolph, of Charlestown, Mass., was 
born a slave but is now free. Such a man may fitly conclude the 
proceedings of this occasion. Most gladly do we welcome him. 
and it is not necessary for me to l»es[)eak your interest in him and 
in what he may have to say. 

Mr. Kandolph was greeted with special sym[)athy and his 
simple and heartfelt words went directly home to the hearts of 
his hearers. 

ADDRESS OF RE^^ PETER RANDOLPH. 

Gentlemen, one word fiom me who was l)orn a slave, not 
free. I will not detain you. I have lieen intensely interested in 
the speeches. When T I'eceived your invit.ition to be ]iresent at 
this meeting I was struck I)}' a peculiar feeling that I was going 
to look into the faces of the heroes of emancipation, and 1 was 
glad when I received the invitation at the thought that I should 
see those men whose names were upon the programme. No one 
can speak of slavery. You can speak of it as an idcji, but I could 
si)eak of it as a reality, had I time to tsilk to you. 1 want to return 
to you my sincere thanks, Mr. President, and the Societ}'. and all 
these friends, for the noble work that you have done in behalf of 
my race. T remember all you have suffered for us, all you have 
endured. I renieinlier listening to the speech of old Governor 
Wise lief ore the United States Court, while I was serving as pas- 
tor in Richmond, Va., and a number of my people had gathered' 



56 

in the Court room. He looked and pointed his finger at us and 
.said, "■Thank God, there is the cause of the bone of our contention. 
Thank God it is gone." Yes, I bless God for all that you have 
done for us and all you have endured. All the insults that you have 
received, everything that has been spoken against you, was sim- 
ply aimed at the black man, the colored race, and therefore I 
think you have stood between us and this terrible outrage, and it 
is due to you that we are free. I am now writing up a histor}' of 
my work in the north and south, and 1 called upon an editor the 
other day and was repeating to him some of the topics I had 
written upon — and some of them about the race problem — and he 
said to me, ''•If you could solve those problems j^ou would be 
Moses." I said "If you would hear what I have said, the prob- 
lem is already solved. Over 1800 years ago God sent his son 
into the world to teach men tlie fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of men. That will solve the whole question and the 
problem of our race." That is the solution you have aimed at, 
my friends, and God bless you. (Applause.) 

Other well known veterans on the platform the audience de- 
sired to hear, among whom were Miss Sarah H. Southwick of 
Wellesley Hills, and Rev. I). S. Whitney of Southboro', but there 
was no time. The former was obliged to leave for home during the 
later proceedings of the afternoon. Both of them afterwards 
kindly Avrote out, by request, the remarks which they had it in 
mind to make, had they been called upon to speak, and their 
words are introduced here, like portions of other written, though 
unspoken addresses, as constituting a proper part of the testi- 
mony and recollections which belonged to the occasion and of 
which these pages are designed to contain a record. 

ADDRESS OF MISS SARAH II. SOUTHWICK. 

Mr. Chairman and Friends: — I have been asked to address 
you, but I cannot make a long S|)eecli. I will try, however, to 
say a few words. I was very glad to come to this meeting, for 
I am interested in an3'thing that psrtains to the history of Dan- 
vers and Salem. Danvers, which was in early times a part of 
Salem, was for two hundred and twenty-five years the home of the 
Southwick family — from 1630, when they landed at Salem and 
were given two acres of laud by the Colony' of Massachusetts 
Ba}', to the death of my grandmother. Abigail Southwick, in 
1856. I think there are not man}' families who have lived on 
.:the same land and carried on the same business for over two 



hundred j'cars. They were taimers, and the eld tanm-iy sitill 
remains and I uni told is still active. The histoi'y of the Sonth- 
wick fanuly too is almost the history of the persecution of the 
Quakers. That old house which stood till 1857, just opposite 
the Soldiers' INIonuinent iu Peabody, was the home of Lawrence 
and Cassandra, who were fined, despoiled, whip[)ed, imprisoned 
and finall}^ banished into the wilderness in the inclement winter 
of lG5t), whence they found their way to the house of Nathauiel 
Sylvester on Shelter Island. Shelter Island is a small island at 
the easterly end of Long Island, where they died witiiin three 
months of each other. This little island is owned by the family 
of the late Prof. Horsford wlio claim to l)e direct descendants of 
Nathaniel Sylvester, and it may interest you as it did me, when 
I tell you that in 1884 I received an invitation from Prof. Hors- 
ford to be present at a meeting of the descendants of Nathaniel 
Sylvester and of the ''Friends" whom he had harbored, for the 
purpose of erecting a monument to their memoi-y. And prom- 
ir.ent among these were Lawrence and (Cassandra Southwick. 
Oil that sam3 place lived also their son, Josiah, who was also 
dreadfully psrsecuted, and Daniel and Provided, the two young 
peoi)le who were put vi[) at auction to ba sold as slaves to Virginia 
or Barbadoes and whom Whittier has commemorated in his poem 
-of " Cassandra Southwick." It is from that Daniel that I am 
directl}' descended. 

I have also heard my grandfather relate how his mother, 
Quaker though she was, took the hot loaves of bread from the 
oven and carried them and hot coffee to the soldiers, who were 
about starting, on the morning of the battle of Lexington, and 
who had congregated in the square at the foot of Boston Street, 
-where the raonumsnt now stands just opposite their house. 

At two different periods in my life, too, I have resided in Dan- 
vers. In 1834, when I attended Master Henry K.Oliver's school, 
whom many of 3'ou will remamber as thj educator of so many 
Salem girls ; and again for three years |)receding my grand- 
mother's death, 185(), and I well know the valm the Peabo ly In- 
stitute was to us. 

Just after we moved to Boston, in 18)'). ocf.irred tlu' m )!> in 
Salem of the house of Mr. Spencer on Buftiim Street, where 
George Thompson was then staying and from whence he nai'row- 
ly escaped, being sent to the house of Isaac Winslow in So.iJi 
Danvers. Then came, Oct. 7, the mob of '' gentlemen of property 
and standing." ]Mr. Thom[)sou had b.uMi invited tospjak at that 
meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery -Society, but tlie 
threats of violence to him were such that the women siuit woi'd ti> 



58 

liliu not to come and it was in conseqnenee of not finding him 
that the mob attacl<ed Mr. Garrison. I was not present at that 
meeting, but ni}' mother was. ^ly sisters and myself were late and 
encountered tiie crowd of men and wers told we could not pass. 
As we loitered the crowd parted and the women came through in 
single file. We joined them and went to the house of Henry G. 
Chapman, 11 West Street. There we vvere told that Mr. Garrison 
was in the hands of the mob and every one was very anxious. 
The meeting was turned into a prayer meeting and the prayers 
you may be sure were very fervent. 

At that time Mr. Thompson came to my father's house at 36 
High Street, and remained there concealed for a fortnight, his 
whereabouts being kept so secret that nobody but a few trusted 
abolitionists were permitted to see him or know where he was 
until he was sent privately to a sailing vessel bound to St. John 
from where he went to Halifax and then to England. His wife 
and family afterward stayed and were comfortably fitted out for 
the return voyage in a packet ship from New York. 

ADDRESS OF REV. D. S. WHITNEY. 

Ma. PuKSiDENT A\D Assembled Friexps : — On one occasion 
when the taunt was thrown out that we had not freed the slaves, 
Oliver Johnson promptly replied that if we had not freed the 
slaves, we had freed ourselves. It is well at such a time as this 
to give a little thought to what was accomplished in behalf of 
themselves and the world by those who were so greatly absorbed 
in the abolition of chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was a condi- 
tion so horrible to humanity that, until it was removed, the lesser 
wrongs endured by other sufferers vvere very naturally held in 
abeyance. It was clearly seen by our noble anti-slavery women, 
while the}' were giving heart and soul and life for the deliverance 
of the slave, tliat they themselves and all their sisters were 
suffering grievous wrongs, but with a magnificent magnanimity 
they put their claims aside until tiie slaves vvere delivered. liut 
now that great undertaking is accomplished; the black curtain 
hanging over humanity is raisel. IJefore the law, the color of 
the skin has no significance, and we can c.ilmly look about to see 
what remains to be done and what to do next b3fore the point of 
greatest perfection can be reached in our efforts to establish here 
in America "a government of the People and for the People and 
by the People." We ought never to lose sight of our peculiar 
position. Providence has clearly appointed tcs to lead the 
oppressed and benighted i)eoples up to Liberty and Light. What 
is the next thing to be done? Clearly to restore her natural 
rights to woman. What are her natural rights? The rights that 



')0 

1 claim for myself and that the hiw allows are clearly hers. I 
know of no natural rigiit that belongs to me that does not behjiig 
to wife and daughters. But they cannot vote for the servants 
whou) we appoint from time to time to execute our laws. Why ? 
Because 1 and my brother, legal voters, hold the power to'grant 
that right and a majority of us refuse to do so. Year after year the 
women have asked us to do this piece of justice, which oni' most 
cherished political principles require of us. '•'Taxation without 
representation is tyranny," exclaims Otis. Is it less so now thau 
a hundred years ago y If the man George, called King by the 
vain ones, was a tyrant, what are we? O brothei- legal voters ! 

Let us hasten to right this great wrong and then we will sec 
what next to undertake. We may be sure, O brothers and sis- 
ters, that there is a great work before us in this gf)odly land of 
ours ; l)ut our working team is not yet full}' made up. We have 
tlie ))hysical and intellectual force of men, but we need and lack 
the moral and spiritual force of women, joined with the physicaJ 
and intellectual, before we shall do the best work for our country 
and the world. 

The Ilutchinsons now favored the audience with still another 

of their favorite songs, "The Old Granite State," which perhaps 

was the most popular of all their [jieces, unless the "Car of 

Emancipation" was an exception. It had a special interest from 

the circumstance that its numerous verses rang so much with 

"The Tril)e of Jesse," to which the singers themselves belo\iged, 

and with the hills of the native home of the famil}'. It was 

largely comi)osed by Jesse, one of the best known of the musical 

brothers, in 1843, John adding some lines to the original form 

during the war. We take fi'om it the following characteristic 

selections : — 

SOXG— "THE OLD GKANITE STATE." 

We have coine from the iiiDiuitains, 
We're come down from the moiuitaius, 
Ho, we're come from the mountains 
Of the old Gnunte State! 

We're a hand of brothers, etc. 

And we love our lilorious nation, 
lloklinu; firm its lofty station ; 
"I'is the i)ride of all creation, 
And our baimer is nnfiirled. 

Men should love eacli otiier, etc. 



GO 

Yes, the good time 's drawini:- iiiyluT 
And our nation, tried by tire, 
bliall proelaini tlie good Messiiali, 
Second coming of the Lord. 
Heart and hand together, etc. 



Now, farewell, friends and brothers, 
Fathei>, sons, sisters, niotliers, 
Lynn people and a I others. 
In the land we love the best. 
May the choicest blessings, etc. 

The meeting was brought to :ui end witli tlie binghig. by the 
Hatehinsons and the audienee, of the fa\orite National hymn, 
"My Country, 'tis of thee," a copy of wliich, written Iiy the 
author himself. Rev. S. F. Smith, was subsequently presented 
to the Societ}'. 

Other welcome offerings to the Society marked the occasion : — 
A fine portrait of William Lloyd Garrison, from his son, Mr. Francis 
J. Garrison ; valuable anti-slavery books and pamphlets from 
Rev. Samuel May and Mr. Parker Pillsbury ; a book on slavery 
from Mr, Lewis P^ord, of Abington, of which he himself was the 
author ; various anti-slavery tracts, given and sent by Mr. Charles 
K. Whipple, of Newburyport ; newspaper articles about the Lib- 
erty Party by Hon. M. M. Fisher, of Medway, and presented l»y 
liira, with photographs; a i)hotograpli of ^Ir. John W. Hutchin- 
son, fi'om Dr. Gaston W. Fowler, of Lynn ; a piece of a slave's 
M'liipping-post at Charleston, S. C, from Mr. Luther S. INIur.roe, 
East Candia, N. H., and an ancient lire-screen that once ))elonged 
to Rev. and INIrs. Peter Clark, of Danvers, from Miss Mary J. 
Loving, of Wobnrn, a descendant. 

Of the three other portraits that graced the stage, besides 
tl'.at of Mr. Garrison, the one of John G. Whittier was kindly 
loaned by the ladies of his household at " Oak Knoll," Danvers. 
that of Charles Sumner l)y Mr. Alfred Fellows, of Danvers, and 
and that of Rev. Samuel J. May of Syracuse, N. Y., by INIr. John 
J. May, of Dorchester. 

The thanks of the Society were presented to these several 
parties for the interesting and generous gifts wdiich they thus 
donated for its collections, and also to the many good friends 



01 



fioiu l';ir ;iiiil ncni' who Imd liy tlu-ir ntlt'iidniiris siit'i'clic^ :;:;(.l 
son^s. coiitrilmti'd so imich lo tlie success of llic ('oiiiiiiuiiioiation. 
And grntt't'id nckiiowledginents nic ;d>o diic and iii'c here It'Si- 
dci'rd lo tliosv' of the uu-mlx'r.s and lu-i'^hliors. wlio tastefully 
decorated the philfonn of the Town Hall with llaus and [)ictures, 
and tloweis and plants, and snpeiintended the tallies and enter- 
tained the iiiiest.s at the Society's IJooms : and also lo the editors 
of the JJ (J tw ''/■■•< J/i/-i-(>r and other local papeis fov their hi'lpfnl 
service and synipath}'. 



LETTERS FROM FRIENDS. 



Ill response to the eiieular of imitation, a lai'ge nnnilier of 
letters were received from friends, many of whom were present, 
Vfhile others were prevented from attendance b}' previous engage- 
ments or l)y distance, or by illness or the infirmities of age. They 
are of so much interest that we have given place to a very eon- 
j>ideral)le portion of them, or extracts from them. Nearly all of 
them are from men or women who were long identified with anti- 
slavery work, and not a few of those who here send their greetings 
or express their sympathy with the occasion, or relate their own 
experiences and recollections, were among the most conspicuous 
and zealous of the I'eformers. These letters, as well as the 
speeches, abound in pertinent facts and illustrations and seem to 
us strikingly representative of the faith and spirit of the earlier 
time. 



FROM HON. FKKDERICK DOUGLASS. 

Ckdak Hill, Anacostl\, T). C, ) 
March 29, 1893. ^ 

I have duly received your kind invitation to meet in Danvers 
the few remaining Aeterans of the anti-slavery ciuse, and it 
would give me great pleasure were I al>le to respond favoral)!}' to 
that invitation. I should be happy to once more see the forms, 
look into the faces and heai' the voices of those whom you have 
invited and who expect to be present at this, proltably last of 
such meetings on earth. 

Yes, I remember Danvers, and the Essex County Anti-Slavery 
Society, and the persons you have mentioned as active in those 
early days. Those times required men and women of strong 
convictions and of courageous and independent character, and 
there were many such. 1 remember my first visit to Danvers 
when I was made welcome to the home of Abuer Sanger, a man 
of high standing, who, in the state of public sentiment then exist- 
ing, could not entertain me without incurring from his neighbors 
much ntifavorable comment. But he was not of the make to set 



63 

aside his couseieuce and siipprt-ss liis noblf. luiiuauc st'iitiinents 
in order to please his neighbors. He stood high above tlie preju- 
dices of the hour and treated me as a man and al)rother. I like, 
too, to remember the Merrills, the Endicotts, the Harrimans and 
others. Could I be with you, J would bear warm testimony to 
the manliness and brothei'ly kindness which met me in Danvers, 
in the earlier and darker hours of my career. To see Parker 
Pillsbur}', the man who was perhaps the source of more terror to 
the i)roslavery church and clergy of his day than any other, and 
to see John Hutchinson, the only remaining one of the Hutchin- 
.son Family which gave its youth, beauty and transcendent 
musical genius to the cause of the slave, would compensate me 
for any tiouble a long journey would require at my hands. 

I am very sorry not to be able to be with you. There would 
be deep pathos in such a meeting, for we are all changed in body, 
if not in spirit. Some of our eyes are already dim, our hair 
white, our faces wrinkled and our bodies bent, and soon, as you 
say, there will be no more meetings on earth. 

There will, however, be a bright side to 3'our assembling. The 
recollection of deeds well done, of lives well spent, of wrongs 
successfully combated, and of a race redeemed from slavery, 
will make old eyes swim *in young tears of joy. Believe me 
present with you in spirit, even if compelled to be absent in body. 

* * * Mrs. Douglass joins me in wishing to my Danvers 
friends a happy and profitable meeting with the veterans of the 
anti-slavery cause. 

FROM MPv. CHARLES K. WHIPPLE. 

! NEwniKYPORT, Ai)r. f), 1S!>;5. 

I rejoice to hear of tlie proposed commemoration of old anti- 
slavery days by the Danveis Historical Society on the 2(Jth inst., 
and am grateful for 3'our courteous invitation to attend its meet- 
ings. It would be deliglitful to meet the old friends and fellow- 
workers who, 3'ou tell mt', are expected there. l»ut various cir- 
cumstances combine to prevent my personal attendance. I will 
gladly, however, say a word of greeting and of suggestion to the 
friends who will assemble there. 

In New England, from which most of the Abolitionists came, 
a new generation is arising who "know not Joseph;" to whom 
the names of Garrisou. Phillips, Quincy, Weld, Burleigh, Foster 
and Pillsl)ur3', and of those noble women, Abby Kelly, Lucy Stone, 
INTaria Weston Chapman and Sojourner Truth are getting to be 
only names, with very little understanding of the dillicuUies and 
tlangers they encouiiteretl and the heroism they displayed in hi- 



04 

borino- f(jr the sluve, wIkmi the chief representatives of Church and 
State, coninierce antl literature, were combining to ol)struet their 
laboi's. To collect, preserve and diffuse the records of those 
labors for the instruction of future generations is one of the most 
important functions of a Historical Societ}'. 1 hope the one in 
Danvers will not fail to obtain, while it is yet possible, such 
books as Richard Hildretli's "Archy iMoore" and ''Despotism in 
America;" Mrs. Chapman's •'Right and Wrong in Boston" and 
•^"Right and Wrong in Wlassachusetts," and Theodore D. Weld's 
"Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses." Also, some of those 
school reading books which, in the early years of the present 
century contained dialogues, verses and stories, inculcating anti- 
slavery sentiments, such as the "American Preceptor" and the 
"Colnmbian Orator." 

Since there still remain, at the north, as well as the south, 
persons disposed to misreprese'nt and calumniate both the aboli- 
tionists and the colored race, and since efforts of this sort still 
occasionally appear in our periodical literature, it is still needful 
to keep an eye on those manifestations, and to answer such of 
them as are worth answering. Work of this sort has been very 
faithful and judiciously done for many -years past by our lately 
deceased fellow-laborer, Oliver Johnson of New York, as well as- 
by Rev. Samuel May of Leicester; but the field is large, and 
many more such reapers are needed. One recent manifestation 
of the proslavery spirit appeared in an article in the September 
Wor til American Itevicio, eui\i\e(\ "Lynch Law in the South," 
by W. Cal)ell Bruce. This writer excuses the cruelties inflicted 
upon negroes by Lynch Law in the South on the ground (which 
he assumes as true) that the assaults of black men upon white 
women in that region are increasing in frequency. He proceeds 
to ask and answer as follows : — 

" Why is it that the negro has become an habitual offender 
against female virtue in the South? * * * Wg answer 
unhesitatingly, much as we are gratified that the incubus of 
slavery has been forever lifted from the South, because the negro 
is no longer subject to the authority of a master, and is yet subject 
to 710 other form of moral discipline that can take its place to as 
good or better advantage." 

Mr. Bruce here made the impudent assumption that the 
methods actually used by slaveholders before the war were 
" moral discipline," and also shows the desire to re-establish as 
much of it as may be i)racticable. Hoping to address the same 
audience in the North American Hevieic, I wrote a rejoinder to 
Mr. Bruce's article, suggesting a probable ex}>lanation of the 



65 

sensuality, niul the l)i'ut:vl indulgence of it, atti-ibuted to the col- 
oied people. 

After stating that the negro raee are adniitted to l)e espec- 
ially imitative, disposed to copy the language, dress, morals,, 
manners and customs of the class reckoned superior around them, 
I made an abstract of the abundant evidence that that superior 
class, for more than a century past, have delil)erately and elabor- 
ately set before their imitators a model in regard to sexual indul- 
gence as follows : — Hy habitual custom, sanctioned and foitified 
by legal statutes, and allowed to ministers and church members 
l)y the silent acquiescence of ecclesiastical bodies, they so (organ- 
ized their communities throughout the slave states that any toldte 
man could ravlt^h with impunity any colored v^otnan. These 
things being so, I asked : — Can you wonder that among tlie class 
who have been kept ignorant and brutal by the deliberate policy 
of the slaveholdei's through so many generations, cases should 
still be found of such extreme brutality as the slaveholders habit- 
ually practiced? And could a renewal of their form of ''moral 
discii)line" be expected to furnish better results? 

As the editor of the North Avierican lievie\o declined to 
print my rejoinder, Mr. Bruce's article remains unanswered. 

I recpiest the Danvers Historical Society to accept, with my 
best wishes, four anti-slavery tracts, -which I post to you with 
this letter. 

I hope that all whcj join your gathei'ing have read or will- 
read an excellent article on •'The Burning of Negroes in the 
South," l)y the editor of the Arena, in the April number of that 
periodical. 

FROM MRS. KATP: TANNATT WOODS. 

" Maple Nest," Salem, Mass, April 7, 1893. 

I am greatly interested in j'our efforts for the abolitionists'" 
meeting under the auspices of our Danvers Historical Society. 
If this wounded limb of mine will only be merciful^ I hope to l)e 
with 3'ou. Did you know that my parents when in New York 
city were shielders and ))rotectors of run away slaves in connec- 
tion with some good Connecticut (Quakers? 

Old " Aunt Dinah," whose story Mr. Garrison was fond of 
telling, was my nurse, a run away slave, cared for, loved, and 
humanly speaking, saved by my own another. One or my lirst 
articles was the story of the "•Coming ok Aunt Dinah," and 
when Mr. Wm. Lloyd Garrison found that I was the author, he 
was ever after my kind friend. How strange it all seems that 
my gifted and handsome mother, who was fond of societ}' and. 



66 

3'et tenderly philanthropic, shonkl be the rescuer of the poor 
slaves in the city of New York without one of her own friends 
Jcnovoinf/ aaghl of it! How strange, also, that her child, who 
had never seen New England then, should come to be one of a 
committee, composed of Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, 
Lucy Stone, and other brave souls who were striving to emanci- 
pate woman, as they had done the black man ! 

If 1 am able to do so, I shall attend the meeting. 
(Mrs. Woods was present.) 

FROM MR. JOSEPH A. ALLEN. 

Newfii:ld, Mass., April 9, 1893. 

The letter of April G, which yon wrote to my brother, 
Nathaniel T. Allen of West Newton, was forwarded to me. 

He is on a trip to California and he will regret very much, I 
am sure, being obliged to decline vour polite invitation for the 
26th. 

Please accept my thanks for the invitation. I anticipate 
much pleasure in meeting some of the few remaining anti-slavery 
veterans. 

FROM REV. THOMAS T. STONE, D. U. 

LoLTON, April 10, 1893. 

Few things could give me more i)leasure than your invitation 
to meet the veterans of the anti-slaveiy conflict. But if there 
were no other hindrance, the age of 92 years may serve as an 
apology for my absence. And yet I can hardly forbear to write 
some of the thoughts which the occasion brings up. What a 
progress, — what a movement in evolution, as the word is now-a- 
days, — this nineteenth century has made, if it were in nothing 
but personal liberty. When it began, slavery was almost univer- 
sal ; its last decade is passing without a slave in Christendom. 
When within so short a period a revolution so great? We ought 
with all our hearts to thank God, and if we feel discouragement 
to cheer ourselves with the hope of sure victoiy for freedom and 
righteousness. 

Not a slave, I have said, in Christendom. But the spirit of 
slavery and the influences which it has poured into the hearts and 
habits of men, naturally survive the institution. Among the out- 
ward and palpable effects which still remain, we cannot readily 
overlook the violence and the fraud by which our enfranchised 
countrymen are deprived of their political rights. Directly we 
can do nothing with these evils. But indirectly, and in what is the 
most effectual way, we can all of us do some thing ; we can 



67 

clu'risli ill our own souls :uid express in oiii deeds and onr words 

true love and earnest sympathy for those who are wronged, and 

can do all in our power to deei)eu the indignation which should 

glow in every heart and which could sooner or later reach the 

couscienee of the oppressor. \\\' may not live to see the end : 

indeed there is no end ; when this and a thousand other evils are 

passed into oblivion, the Su|)reme Father will have other work for 

f>is children to do. putting away evils which are now hidden 

and striving for good of which we now have little foresigiit. So 

let us gird ourselves continually for each new conllict, for each 

new victory ; for in this warfare there is never such a thing as 

I lefeat ; seeming reverses often, l»ut these ai\' si'cn at la^t to Ik- 

i<^ ictories. The cross has hecomc to us symliol of the greatest 

7 ictory which has been won on earth. Wiiat was it l)ef>»re the 

.le Sufferer made it the promise of God? 

]f I could well be with you at the gatheiing. -luit h't that 
ss ; iny heart is still with you, with all who in the daikest hour 
'ked for the coming d ly. May we all be faithful t » thi- last. 
The blessing of tli/ Highest be with eacii and all. 

VUOM HON. FKANCIS AV. lUIM). 

Kast Walpoi.e, Mass., April i;!. 1S;»;'). 

It would give me great pleasure to attend the meeting for 
the commemoration of the old anti-slavery days. I like to refresh 
my fading recollections of those good times and g<K)d men. I 
CouUl contribute Init very little to such a gathering, but 1 should 
enjoy meeting those of fewer years and better memories than 1 
am ; but I could not be with you and get home before uight, and 
I must defend my evenings. 

FPvOM HON. SIM HON DODGE. 

INfAitni-KiiEAii, Apiil 14, 181»;>. 

Absence from lionie is the reason for my not receiving yours, 
dated April (Jth, until today. 

Please accept my thanks for your invitation to attend the 
meeting on the "iOth, at Danvers Plains. I hope to be present on 
rithat occasion if I am in this vicinity at that time. 

I think that all of the earli/ al)olitionists of INIarblehead, with 
the exception of myself and wife, have either died or removed 
fiom town. There are others who came into the moveniLMit at a 
:ater date. I will notify them, or some of them, of the meeting. 



G8 

FROM REV. JOSEPH MAY. 

Philadelphia, April 15, 1893. 

I received tlie other da}', in Boston, yonr kind letter about 
the interesting meeting 3'on are planning. While eveiTthiug 
connected with the grand movement for abolition is deeply inter- 
esting to me, for itself, and for its personal associations, and I 
shonld rejoice to attend the meeting, 1 am just now so very busy 
that I cannot think of it. I have assumed several pieces of extra 
work, which must, for two or three months, moi'e than occupy 
all my leisure, of wdiich I have little. 

>So I hardly tiiiuk I can even write a letter as you kindly 
propose. I must be content to send only m\ assurance of deep 
sympathy in all that you do and in all the memories your meeting 
will call up. I esteem it perhaps the greatest good fortune in my^ 
own lot, to have been born and brought up under the influence of 
a movement, morally so noble, and of the group of men, not only 
morally, but intellectuall}', so able and inspiring. The person- 
alities of all the leaders are most familiar to me — they all seemed 
like kinsmen — and 1 am deeply conscious of Itie indelible impres- 
sion for good they and their cause made upon my chai'acter. I 
revere them and their pure, unselfish zeal. 

P^ROM MR. JOHN CURTIS. 

RoSToN, Apr. 16, 181)3. 

I am in receipt through you of an invitation from the J)aii- 
vers Historical Society to attend a meeting on the 26th, commem- 
orative of Old Anti-Slavery Days. You may be assured of my 
l)resence at so interesting an occasion as the assembling of the 
few veteran abolitionists yet spared from the destiny that awaits 
all mankind. It was my fortune to be simply a private in those 
stirring times, and though past " three score and ten," I have the 
most pleasurable recollections of the events and the renowned 
men and women who labored and led in the historical Anti 
Slavery struggle. I trust your meeting will be most successful. 

FROM REV. WM. H. FISH, SEN. 

Dediiam, April 17, 1893. 

1 am very glad and grateful that The Dauvers Historical 
S(X'iety has had the thoughtful kindness to inaugurate a meeting 
commemorative of the Old Anti-Slavery Da^'s, and to make gen 
erous preparations for it. At that meeting I hope to be present 
having received a kind invitation to it from vour committee of 



Git 

nrrangemcnts, puilicuhirly through lu}' esteemed friend Dr. A. 
1'. Putnam. I wish that my neighlxji-, the noble and faithful 
Theodore 1). Weld, could also he present, l)ut at ninety years of 
age. and quite feel)le, this seems hardly praetieahle, if |)ossil)le. 

My interest in the Anti-Slavery cause and Ganisonism dates 
hack almost sixt}' years — now eighty-one — and I am as thankful 
now as then that 1 was ever l)rought into a close and active union 
with it and with its lepresentative men and women, es])ecially in 
Massachusetts and New York — in New York in active association 
with those truest, n<)blest, divinest of men, Samuel J. May and 
Uerrit Smith, they themselves standing evidences of Immortality, 
for such men can never die, or cease to be. 

1 shall be glad of the opportunity to look once more into the 
faces antl to take by the hand of an enduring friendship and 
fellowship, the very few of my generation and age that may be 
present at the meeting, as Samuel May and Parker Pillsltury — 
•ever " faithful among the faithless found" — and to see also the 
children and children's children who cherish the faith and honor, 
the devotion and zeal of their i)ioueer fathers and mothers, the 
most of whom long since rested from their labors and entered into 
rest in the world " where the slave is free from his master," and 
their good works have followed them. 

FROM RE^^ PvOBEKT COLLYEK. 

New Y'ork, April 17, 1893. 

I would love to come to the gathering of the Old Guard of 
Freedom, but have no time or strength to spare just now or then. 
I should delight to see your faces, clasp your hands, and listen 
while you tell the grand old stor}' so far as it may be told that 
day. My dear friend, PLdward M. Davis, used to say that "the 
cause" had done more for you than you could ever do for the 
cause, and in what small measure I could be one with it along 
through the fifties, I know this was true. And it will be true 
always, but esj)ecially of the old abolitionists, be they among the 
living or those we call the dead. 

"Those heroes who could ii-ran(ll\- do as they could sfieatly dare, 
A vesture very glorious tlieir shining spirits wear." 

They stand within the greatest movements on the life of the 
Repul)lic while it has a name to live. If 1 could come and was 
worthy to say an}' word in such a gathering, this would be my 
word. I am sure it would not be needed, for the good scripture 
will be true of you all— " the word is nigh thee, even in thy 
heart." 



7J 

FROM MRS. C. II. I) ALL. 

Washix<;tox. 1). C, April 17, 1893. 

Into llie midst of all the tiresome spring cnies which beset 
tiiose who live in hot climates, comes the circular of the Danverf- 
Historical Society, like a refreshing northern breeze. When I 
stood with Mr. May and Mr. Pillsbury at Whittier's funeral wlieii 
I heard Abby Hutchinson sing her swan-song for herself and the 
dead Poet, 1 thouglit I was standing for the last time with my old 
companions in Anti-Slavery work. It rejoices me to think that 
Danvers will not i)ei mit their memory to perith. that theie ar«^ 
still men and wonun who hold tiie "Old Guaid" piecions aii^I 
sacred. Those of us who iive(l tluough those perilous tiniec 
cannot help smiling now and tlien, as we enconntei' on our roll 
names unknown or given only at the eleventh hour, and I'ead tlit 
frequent assei"tion that Garrison and his men kept liack tiie wort 
and accomplished nothing. Let tiicjse laugh who will, for well we 
know who held the key of the situation! Much lemains to be 
done before our country will hold the position before the world 
that all her true sons desire for her. Instead of Columbiai* 
Expositions I would ratlier see truth and honor in high places ; 
instead of Palaces of Invention, I would rather see the u[)bnilding 
of a State whose foundations shall be laid in truth nud righteous- 
ness. We are free — let us learn to be upright. 

FROM MR. AVENDKLL P. GARRISON. 

Ni;\v York, April 17, 1893. 

It would give me much pleasure to attend your commemora- 
tlon Anti-Slavery meeting next vveek, and I desire to acknowl- 
edge with thanks the invitation extended to my wife and myself. 
But it will be impossible for us to attend, and for my own pait I 
feel that ten years given to reviewing and icporting the h'story of 
the cause — so far as that could be done in the lifi' of my father — 
entitle me to a long exemption fi'om i-eminiscence, an(l certainly 
make it seendy to liold my i)eace for a while and let others take 
the floor. 

FROM MRS. ELIZARETII B. CIIACE. 

Valley Falls, R. I., April 18, 1893. 

It is with extreme regi-et that I am ol)liged to deny myself 
the great happiness it would be to me, to unite with the dear old 
friends, and the friends of the younger generation, in commem- 
orating the great struggle for human freedom, in which it was mj 



71 

Ijlessed priviloii'e to hear uii ImmliU' [)ait. Uut iiTcvocahle cir- 
cumstances muko it iiiiito.ssiblc for iiic to sliai'c in tliis coinin<>' 
blessedness. 

Tliere is no portion of my life, lo which, now, in my eighty- 
seventh year, 1 revert with more satisfaction, than that which I 
gave to the cause of the slave. 

No guests were ever more welcome to my door, than were 
those who came in the darkness of night, to escape from the 
human ])loodhounds who were seeking for pi-ey. Ko ministers 
of the Gospel brought me so acceptable insti-uction as did 
tlie self-sacriticing teachers of the Gospel of freedom. To me, as 
to many others, it was a liberal education. There we learned the 
injustice, the degradation of the condition of woman, and were 
thereby prepared, when the slavery of the black man was abol- 
ished, to enter on the warfare for the emancipation, the enfi-an- 
cliisement and the eIev;ition of the subjected, the dependent half 
of humanity. That so njany of tiiose early workers liave passed 
away, will cast a shadow on the bi-ightness of the occasion, but it 
is safe to indulge the belief, that, wherever they aie, they are in 
full syuii)ath3' with it there, and are i)articipating in the enjoy- 
ment thereof. 

Those t)f us who still i-emain on the earth, Init are denied the 
pleasure of this reunion, will miss the hearty hand-shakings and 
greetings of the day, but we will enjoy them in si)irit, and we 
will wish for you all, the brightest of skies, the loveliest of south- 
westerly breezes, the warmest remarks of friendsiii|), and the 
ha[)piest remembrances of this memoralile event. 

FROM REV. RICHARD S. STORRS, ]). D. 

RiiOOKi.vN, N. Y., Ajiril ISth, l.SDo. 

How faraway seem the days which you aie to recall in Dan- 
vcis I And what memories of cUxpicnce. self-dcvol ion, sacrilice, 
success, are awakened by your reference to llicm 1 1 should be 
most happy to be present at your proposed ( clcliration, even to 
take part in it in some subordinate way, lint it will be as impossi- 
ble for me to go to Danvers next week as it vvou'd be to carry 
thitlier the sunrise, in my hands. I can only thank you for your 
kind thought of me in connection with the occasion, and wish for 
3'our Society, in this work and all others, tlu' largest pros|)erity. 

FROM MRS. EMILY AV. TAYEOR. 

(iKRMANTOWN, 1*A., April E'^tll, l<S!)o. 

I have just reccivec] a circular inviting me to attend a meet- 
ing commemorative of old anti-slavery days, to be held at Dan- 



72 

vers. AVere it possible, I sliould deliglit to do so, to meet once 
more so many of tlie prominent speakers wiio are to be there and 
to recall memories of onr three years' residence in Danvers when 
my father, Isaac Winslow, was very actively interested in the 
anti-slavery cause, harboring fugitive slaves at our house ; also 
entertaining George Thompson at about the time that he was 
being watched for and hunted in Boston. I also recall with what 
'interest my father aided in getting up a meeting at which his co- 
religionists, Sarah and Angelina Grimke, were to speak against 
the institution of slavery, in the midst of which they had always 
lived. Oh, those were days to which I look back with enthusi- 
asm — days which were worth living in. 

FROM MRS. EDNAII D. CHENEY. 

Jamaica Plain, April 18, 1893. 

It grieves me very much that, owing to a severe attack of 
lameness, I cannot promise myself the pleasure of responding to 
3'our kind invitation in remembrance of old Anti-Slavery Days. 
I love these reunions of those who took part in that glorious 
-struggle for right and liberty, and small as my part in it was, I 
am proud to be recognized as always having been with them in 
heart and soul. 

But happy as we are in the great deliverance that was accom- 
plished thirty years ago, and proud as we are of the wonderful 
progress, and admirable conduct of those who were then emanci- 
pated, the hour has not yet come when we can fold our hands in 
satisfaction without considering the evils that still remain, and 
threaten the permanence of the blessing we have gained through 
bitter contliet. 

The outrages on helpless negroes at the South by lynch law, 
the indignities put upon thera in defiance of the principles of the 
Amendment to the Constitution, the hindrances in their pursuit of 
various emploj'ments, in short the inhuman prejudice still power- 
ful against them, ought to arouse us to vigilance and make us 
feel that we have not yet paid our debt to them, l>ut must stand by 
them until the}' are really " through the woods." 

If our hands are sometimes fettered in regard to direct work 
for them at the South, at least we can cast out the evil spirit 
from among ourselves, and by our own fidelity, send a current of 
bracing air ever down to those who are laboring for them at the 
South, and keep up the hearts of the new generation who knew 
not slavery, but who sometimes feel the degradation of their 
present condition as keenly as their forefathers did the miseries 
of actual bondasfe. 



73 

But you all feel and know these things, and so I need only 
say that I shall be with you iu sympathy, and rejoice to know 
that you will be encouraged in your work by again joining hands 
in friendship and uiemor}' of old days. 

FROM MRS. HENRY WARD BKECIIER. 

Brooklyn, N. Y., April 18th, 1803. 

It is very kind in you to remember me and invite me to this 
commemoration of the old anti-slavery days. Nothing coukl 
give me greater pleasure than to be present on an occasion so 
closely connected with the memory of my husband. But, if I 
can leave home and the work I have on hand, I am booked for 
the Pacific Coast, Puget Sound, where my youngest son is. 

I may not accomplish all that I have plannetl, but as you 
can well imagine, long to see my boy and his famil}' once more, 
and if I can compass that, 1 inust not venture on any other 
engagements. 

FROIM DR. W. SYMINGTON BROWN. 

Stoneham, Mass., Apiil 18, 1893. 

Other duties will prevent me from enjoying the anti-slavery 
celebration on the 2()th instant. I would like to see Parker Pills- 
liury once more, who, I believe, is the last of the old anti-slavery 
orators I delighted to hear. 

When I came to the United States in 1850, I had letters of 
introduction to Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Theo- 
dore Parker ; also one to Charles Hovey. They are all dead ; 
l)Ut the sacred cause of human freedom still lives, and will never 
die. I still try to do the work it demands. 

FROM MR. D. L. BINGHAM. 

Manchester, Mass., April 18, 1893. 

We shall be most pleased, my wife and I, to attend the meet- 
ing commemorative of those old "Anti-Slavery Days." and to 
look once more in the faces of those who weie true to God and 
humanity, when it cost — to be true. 

In a letter written a few days later, (April 22)^ Mr. Bingham 
most properly asked if a circular of invitation had been sent to 
Mr. and Mrs. Daniel W. Friend, of Manchester, and stated that 
their home had once "gladly leceived" and greatly comforted 
and aided a poor fugitive slave, who had come to it, " wet, cold 
and hungry." In answer to a request for more particuhirs con- 



cerning the case, the foUowuig couiinnnication has come to hand. 
It records an act of certain " good Samaritans," which, like 
countless other similar deeds of the abolitionists, shoidd be held 
in " everlasting remembrance." 

]\[anchestek By-tiie-Sea, Aug. 8, 1893. 
I should have answered your letter earlier, but my brother 
Friend was away, and 1 wished to hear again the story of the 
fugitive slave before writing. It was sometime in the fifties, in 
the spring of the year, the weather rainy and cold, when the poor 
fugitive came to the house of the Baptist minister. Brother 
Friend, going home in the gloom of the evening, saw the minister 
on the street, looking for one of the hielectmeu to take charge of 
the poor wanderer, a very imprudent thing to do at that time. 
Brother F. said, "I will take care of him." The minister gave 
him supper, but was unwilling to shelter him over night. Brother 
Friend took him into a warm room, took off his soiled and wet 
clothes, bathed his feet in warm water, gave him clean, dry 
clothing, put him in his own bed, and treated him with hot drinks 
until he was warmed. He was trembling with cold when he 
entered brother F.'s house. The next morning brother F. came 
to me greatly pleased that he had violated an unjust law, by 
showing mercy. The fugitive was a good-looking, intelligent 
man, about 30 j'ears old. He had been body servant to a wealthy 
Baltimorean. As he was thinly clad, my wife, Emeline Bingham, 
worked nearly all day Sunday, repairing an overcoat that hap- 
pened to fit hiin. Mr. Thomas P. Gentlee, a near neighbor, came 
in Sunday evening with a purse of mone}'. This was increased 
by brother F. 1 added some. So the poor man was in good 
condition to start for Canada very early Monday morning. It 
was Mrs. Hannaii Friend, now dead, a most excellent woman, 
who helped receive the fugitive. But Mr. P^i'ieud's pi'csent wife 
was also " in at the starts'' as I wrote. * * * 
Ivcspectfully and truly yours, 

D. L. BINGHAM. 

FROM MISS ANNA L. COFFIN. 

Nkwhuryport, Apr. 19, 1898. 

When I was calling at Mr. Whipple's a few weeks ag >, he 
si)oke of the contemplated reunion at Danvers on the 26th inst., 
of the old abolitionists, and how much my father, the late Joshua 
CotRu, would have enjoyed such a meeting. 

He was alwaj's a lover of freedom, showing it in his boy- 
hood by buying caged wild birds from his mates and enjoying 



the suiucine pleasure of frci'in<i' tlicin ; iiiul in his enrly iiKiiiIiood 
1)}' outspoken and cainest words against slavery. Later in life 
he joined the Anti-Slavery Society, risking his life \)y going from 
riiiladelphia to Memphis in 1838, and resening from shu-ery a 
free colored man who had been kidnaj)))ed and sold. These 
events occurred before my recollection, but many years after he 
used to tell us about his ''south-western tour," as he called it, 
always finishing by saying, ''A war between the North and 
South will surely come and the slaves will l)e freed. I may not 
live to see it, but you undoidjtedly will." To his great joy, and 
ours with him, he lived to see it. During all the daik days of 
the civil war he never lost his faith in the goodness of (iod and 
His over-ruling providence. 

FROM MRS. LILLTE B. CIIACP: WYMAN. 

A'alley Falls, R. I., April U), 18'J3. 

^Iv hnsban<l and I regret very much that we can not l)e with 
tlie anti-slavery friends in Danvers on the 2Gth. Mr. Wymaii is 
now in Chicago, and I am going West on the 2 ttli. 

Mr. Wymau was one of the younger members of the group 
of Abolitionists in Worcester from 1846 or 1847. He was 
earnestly and enthusiastically devoted to the cause, was a 
si)eaker in anti-slavery meetings ; and during most of the dozen 
Years preceding the Civil War he was a non-voting (rarrisonian. 
He has many interesting and happy memories of Theodore Par- 
ker, Wendell Phillii)s and Wm. Lloyd Garrison. He served 
three years in the army, because he believed that the war was an 
opportunity to i)ut an end to slavery. As Provost Marshal of 
Alexandria, Virginia, he gave the negroes equal justice with the 
whites, and was the lirst United States otHcial in that position, 
who proved himself the friend of the slave. His last military 
sei'vice was to accompany the l)ody of Abraham Lincoln to its 
I'csting jjlace in Springfield, Illinois. It was a real regret to him 
that lie was obliged to leave home before your reunion. 

Too young myself to |)articii)ate in the anti-slaver}' warfare, 
1 was the inheritor of the traditions of freedom from my father 
and mother, my grandfather Arnold Buffum, and his father 
William Buffum, a Quaker Abolitionist in Rhode Island. INIy 
earliest memories are of anti-slavery speakers entertained as_ 
guests in our house, of fugitive slaves, and of childish iudigna 
tion at the assault in t\w Senate upon Charles Simmer. The 
mild smile of Wm. Lloyd Garrison was one of the benedictions 
that fell ui)on my chihlliood, and the kindness of Stephi'ii au I 
Abby Kellev Foster made me an intimate guest in their home. 



76 

I have no words to tell all, in tlie way of mental and moral 
education, which I owe to the Abolitionists, and my soul lionoi's 
their memory. I hope that every thing will pass pleasantly and 
satisfactorily at yonr pi'oposed reunion and 1 wish 1 conld he 
with you. 

P^KOM MR. AARON M. POWELL. 

New York, April 20, 1893. 

It would give Mrs. Powell and myself much pleasnie to 
attend the anti-shiver}' reunion to which y(ju kindly invite us. 1 
regret that our engagements are such that it will be iin[)racticable 
for us to do so. 

It is not too much to say of the American anti-slavery 
conflict that it was the grandest moral movement of modern 
times. To have known and touched hands with its noble, self- 
sacrificing leaders, men and women, and to have shared to any 
extent in their labors, gives to those of us who 3'et linger on this 
side of the border added significance to life itself. More and 
more, too, as the years go on, do the early Abolitionists become, 
as an object lesson, helpers and teachers to younger workers of 
this generation in dealing with the prevalent evils of our time. 

I am rejoiced that just now Boston comes again to the front, 
and characteristically, to protest agaiust our oppressive treatment 
and scandalous injustice iu dealing with the Chinese ; and with a 
timely demand upon the supreme judicial tribunal of the nation 
to vindicate their legal rights. 

FROM MLS8 MARY GRE^V. 

PiiiLAUELPiiiA, April 20, LS93. 

To l)e with you on this occasion, to listen to 3'our voices and 
clasp your hands in fraternal greeting, would renew the inspira- 
tion of our years of struggle, of hope; when, side by side and 
heart to heart, we fought, with the sword of the Spirit, the 
battle of Freedom for the American slave. 

The years which have elapsed since we sang together the 
Jubilee song have been so full of earnest work in other fields, so 
nuieh has been accomi)lished in Moral, Social and Political 
Reforms, that, looking Ijackward to that joyous hour, the interim 
seems very long. How many ecclesiastical barriers have been 
broken down, how many more are tottering today ! What les- 
sons in the brotherhood of Nations have been taught by World's 
Expositions ! And how marvellous has been the i)rogress of 
woman's emancipation from the bonds of church and statute law 
and enthralling: customs I 



To the Aiiiciicjui Anti-Slaveiy Society l)t'l()ii<is the honor of 
liein^' the pioneer in this Keforni. Women should never fofget 
that in 1.S40 that Soeiety stood alone in its assertion of perfect 
e(iuality of its ineuihers, without distinction of sex. It was a 
very radical, veiy startlin<i asM-ition and piactice then ; and 
tlieie were aliolitionists who could not stand this test ; and they 
'• walked no more with us." What would these timid conserva- 
tives have thought if they could have looked across these intv'r- 
veniuii' y.'ars and cvjuld h:iv-_' si'cn women in the pulpits, at tli.^ 
liar, in professors' cliairs in colle^^es, voting at the polls, and 
tilling state and municipal olfices? 'M'*}' ^^'^' '^*^*f' respected 
friends, gratefully and humbly rejoice today that in oui- arduous 
Avork as al)olitionists we were permitted to give an impetus to this 
newer cause now speeding to its triumph? 

If I could be wdth you in person, as 1 shall in s[)irit, 1 think 
that the audience would seem to me youthful. Should you call 
the roll of our "Old Guard," how few would be the audible 
i'es[)onses ! The names of many absent ones (not dead. butmoi'C 
alive than we,) will be in your thoughts, and their faces will be a 
vivid memor}'. Let us thiidv of them ho|)efulIy, ay, rejoicingly, 
that they "' fought a good light, and kept the faith ;" and having 
tinished their course here, have gone onward and upward to 
larger life and work. They are enshrined in our hearts : — Garri- 
son, Phillips, May, Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, and the 
host of faithful souls wdio with them endured unto the end. And 
some still here. l)ut far advanced in years, will doubtless send 
you greetings. As I write, our venerated Dr. Furness is receiv- 
ing the congratulations of his friends on his ninety-tirst birthday. 
He gave to us the benediction of his presence at a similar ALerao- 
rial Meeting recently held in this city. And R )bert Purvis, tried 
and true, is too feeble to ai)i)ear among you otherwise than in 
cordial sympathy. 

Another aged abolitionist, ^Irs. Kosanna Thompson, long 
and Avell known in Pliihulel|)hia, unfaltering in the darkest and 
most perilous hours of our conflict, wishes to send, from her bed 
of sickness, gieeting to her fellow-laborers, and to say that she 
has " never ceased to be grateful that she was counted wortiiy to 
be a soldier in that thirty 3'ears' war; — a war in church and state, 
in commerce and in society ; a war which was not all peaceful in 
its methods, as the violence and martyrdoms of that period will 
show." 

To the 3'onng generation, foi- whom the woi'k of the twen- 
tieth century waits, 1 would say : — Let the achievenu'Uts of the 
)>ast stimulate and encourage you to carr}' on bravely the work 



78 

which your fathers and mothers bequeath to you. To each nation, 
to each period, comes its own task, its own tes-t of ticlelity to trutli 
and right ; its own peculiar phase of the old conHict between 
justice and injustice, liberty and slavery ; and. ever the same 
assurance of ultimate victory. 

FROM MRS. CAROLINP: M. SKVKRANCK. 

Los Angeles, Cal., A[)r. 20th, ''J3. 

It is a sore temptation which your kind invitation biinys me, 
to be present at the coming commemoration of the old anti- 
slavery work and days. Almost no temptation could be stronger. 
But the time would be too short, since your letter reached me only 
yesterda3\ the 19th. Too short time for this to be in season for 
the occasion, I fear. And so I can only mourn my own absence 
in the distance which does not lend encliantment to the scene, the 
l>eloved faces and voices outdoing all conjui'ing of the imagination. 

You do me great honor in remembering me. who was so late 
a comer and so feeble a helper, in your noble woik. But it was 
one of the nc^blest fellowbhips. and most valuable experiences, of 
my life, — covering largely, also, 1 he kindred work for woman's 
education and recognition as citizen. I have just now had the rare 
pleasure of listening to John W. C'hadwick's admirable paper on 
Theodore Parker and his work, which revived delightfully for me 
those wonderfully pregnant days under his ministry to all good 
causes in Union Hall, which was the great awakening to so many 
blinded eyes, and inspiration to so many hungry hearts. 

Ah yes, how tenderly I recall the fine old times, and the be- 
loved friends. Give them my heartiest greeting at this end of 
their memorable gathering, and my hope to see them face to face 
before they '^ join the choir invisi!)le." 

FROM MISS MARY J. LORING. 

WoBUKN, Mass., April 20, 1893. 

I have received the Society's ciicular. I tiiink your meeting 
Avill be a grand affair. There can be nothing higher for man or 
woman taan to take an interest in humanity. M3' father and my 
mother were strong anti-slavery people and by their influence 
their daughter has ever hated oppression in any form. 1 intend 
to be present anti shall bring for your Society a fire-screen which 
the Rev. Peter Clark and his wife Del)orah held in their hands 
many times ; and one of their descendants is more than pleased 
to return it to its old home in Danvers. Ilo])ing to have the 
pleasure of meeting with yon again, I am yours for the elevation 



79 

of huniniiitv and for llic prospeiity of tlu' Danvt'is Ilistoiicnl 
Society. 

[Rev. Peter Clark was luinister of the First Cliiircli of Daii- 
vers from 1717 until 17G8.] 

FROM MR. FRANCIS J. GARRISON. 

4 Pahk Stkekt, Boston, April 20, 180o. 

It will give Mrs. Garrison and myself much pleasure to 
accept the invitation of tlie Danvers Historical Society for the 
26th inst., if no unforeseen obstacle prevents, though it may not 
be practicable for us to remain through the entire afternoon. 
My business duties make it difficult for me to speak with cer- 
tainty, but I shall be nmch disappointed if they prevent my meet- 
ing the friends whom you are to gather at your next meeting. 

FROM MR. CORNELIUS WELLINGTON. 

F^AST Lexington, April 20, 1893. 

I thank the committee for the kind invitation to be present 
at the commemorative meeting on the 2Gth lust. 

I will take the train which leaves Boston at 10.4.5, accom- 
panied by one and perhaps two of my sisters, all members of the 
Lexington Historical Society, and old active members of the 
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. 

It will indeed be a })leasure to us to meet once more any of 
the few remaining workers in the anti-slavery field in years gone 
by, and to meet again and become better acquainted with the 
members of the Danvers Histoi-ical Society which you represent. 

FROM MR. JOHN J. MAY. 

DouciiKSTKK, Mass., April 21, 1893. 

You have my cordial thanks for the invitation to the gatlier- 
ing at Danvers, which 1 cannot doubt will be a most interesting 
occasion. 

An accumulation of work, caused partly by confinement tit 
home by the prevailing inttneuza, will probably prevent my going 
thither, although 1 do not altogether forego the hope. 

It occui's to me that if you seek for portraits of the anti- 
slavery heroes whom you commemorate, you may like the loan 
of a crayon portrait, liy Kimberly, the best likeness extant, I 
think, of Samuel Joseph May. late of Syracuse, (born 1797, died 
1871), of whom I always have felt, as Andrew D. White ex- 
pressed his feelings at the grave, — tiiat he was "the best man I 
ever knew, the purest, the sweetest, the most like tiie Master." 



80 

If the loan will l)c acceptable, I will readil}', on learning this 
from you, carefully box the picture and .send it by express, as 
yon may direct; and 1 will bear the risk and charges, glad to be 
of some small service for tiie good work. 

FROM PROF. GRANVILLE W. PUTNAM. 

PosTOX, Mass., April 21, 1893. 

I regret to say that school duties will detain me from Dauvers 
on the 2(3th. I cannot doubt that yon will have a most interest- 
ing occasion. 

In my early boyhood I used to hear with interest the earnest 
anti-slavery talks of Deacon Howe, as I visited his shop to get 
the horse shod ; of Mr. Learoyd, and Allen Knight of District 
No. 4. 

I was not old enough to understand the merits of all that was 
said, but the strong convictions of these men made an impression 
which Avill never be effaced from my memory'. 

P^ROM HON. MELLEN CHAMBERLAIN. 

Chelsea, Mass., April 21, 1893. 

I esteem it a great privilege to be invited to participate in 
the commemoration of old anti-slavery days, to be held by the 
Danvers Historical Society next Wednesday. 

I personally knew some of those in Danvers who were most 
active by their votes, their gifts, and their personal influence, in 
bringing on these days in which no slave l)reathes our air. They 
were noble men and women, and their lives ought not to be for- 
gotten. 

FROM MR. LUCIAN NEVVHALL. 

Lynn, Mass., April 22, 1893. 

Please accept my thanks for 3'onr kind invitation to attend 
the '^ meeting commemorative of old anti-slavery days." 

It will give me great pleasure to be at such a meeting, as I 
have been familiar, and in sympathy with, the anti-slavery move- 
ment for the last half century, having had the pleasure and satis- 
faction of hearing all the anti-slavery speakers of that period, and 
the personal acquamtance of many of them. 

My wife and myself hope to have the pleasure of attending 
the meetins:. 



FROM MK. G. L. STKEETER. 

Salem, IMass., April '22, 1803. 

I shall be pleased to attend the meeting of the Danvei's ■ 
Historical Society in commenioration of Old Anti-Slavery Days, 
if I am able to, as I hope to l)e. Those days I recall with great 
interest, as do all who were engaged in the bitter struggle with 
the slave-power, in however Imnihle a ca|)acity. At that time 
it was necessary for the friends of freedom to stand by each 
other, shoulder to shoulder, and in that way mutual symi)athies 
wei'e excited and strengthened which have served as a bond of 
union down to this late day so long after the battle and the 
victor3^ This, I supi)ose, explains your historical meeting, and 
in this spirit I shall be glad to meet the survivors of the conflict 
and theii' friends and sympathizers of the i)resent time. 

FROM DR. JAMES C. JACKSON. 

North Adams, Mass., April 22, 189o. 

I would that I were able to take the journey and sliarc with, 
the friends who will be present the pleasures of the meeting. P>ut 
I cannot go. The invitation has stirred my heart tuniultuousl\'. 
It was in the early autumn in 1838 that I accepted an invitation 
from the Mass. State Anti-Slavery Society, to become one of its 
anti-slaver}' lecturers. My home at that time was in Peterbor- 
ough, Madison County, New York. I had up to that time for 
nearly five years been devoting my time as an anti-slaveiy agent 
in different parts of the state of New York. I arrived at Boston 
on the first of October, and met the State Committee at the anti- 
slavery ofPice in Cornhill street on the afternoon of that day, I 
think. There I met INIr. William Lloyd Garrison, Mr. Francis 
Jackson, Mr. Joseph Southwick, and all of (he tSiate Committee^ 
if 1 remember rightly. I also met the Rev. John A. Collins, 
who came to my residence in New Yoik state to engage me, and 
there I met Mr. Parker Pillsbury, to whom, if he shall l)e present 
at your meeting, I desire to liavi; you give my affectionate remem- 
l)rance. 

My first si)eech in the sei'vice of the Society was made at 
Lynn. If I recollect rightly the meeting was held in the L'niver- 
salist clmi'ch ; the Congregational church could not l»e had. 
ol)iection l)eing made by the pastor, the Rev. Parsons Cook. I 
went thi'ough Ess(;x County that fall, speaking wherever the Stale 
Society a|)[)ointed a meciting for me. One of the places where i 
s;ioke was Danvers. [ have tried to rcM'ollect at whose house I 
was a iriiest, but I cannot recall the name of the man. After I 



82 

li:ul ht'eu tlu'oagli Essex county, the State Committee took me 
out of tlie general field and placed me under the care and over- 
sight of the Rev. John A. Collins, its general agent. From that 
time onward till the spring of 1840, I attended meetings with 
Mr. Collins only, wherever in the state he might be present. 

In the spring of 1840 1 attended the meeting of the American 
Anti-Slavery Society, when the Abolitionists divided on the ques- 
tion whether women should be i)ermitted not merely to hold 
membership, but to hold oHice. That was the Orst public meeting, 
so far as 1 know, held anywhere in the world to discuss publicly 
the question whether a woman possesses inherently the right to 
discuss [)ublicly any intrenched public moral evil. 

After I became Secretary of the American Anti-Slavery So- 
ciety, my public labors in Massachusetts essentially ceased. The 
friendships which 1 there formed remain fresh in my memory. I 
have never ceased for one moment to love Mr. Garrison, Wendell 
FhilHi)s, Francis -Jackson, Joseph and Thankful Southvvick, Rev. 
Edwin Thompson, lion. George Bradburn, Henry C. Wright, 
Stephen Foster, Abby Kelly, Parker Fillsbury, James N. Buft'um 
and Ruth his wife, William Bassett, George W. Benson, Charles 
Lennox Remond, Lewis Ilayden, and a thousand other men and 
women whom 1 loved and who I feel sure loved me. 

So much for matters personal. Now for '* The Cause.'" 
As rei)resenting the rights of the Negro to his freedom, full and 
entire, as a man, I find nothing in history to equal the devotion 
of al)olitionists of all grades and shades of opinion, in any other 
direction. That there were differences among them the records 
which were made and which form the history of the great struggle, 
])lainly show ; but these differences were as to methods rather 
tiian to [)rinciples. I had favored opportunity by my position as 
secretary of the National Anti-Slavery Society to know that 
apostasies from the underlying, essential idea that a nu\n is a 
man wherever you lind him, were veiy uncommon. 

1 have always felt that the great element of safetv to the 
cardinal principle of the movement, as agitation went on, was the 
introduction into it, as an essential element, the membershii) and 
active labors in every department of it, of women. As I observetl 
what were the conservative effects of their presence in our socie- 
ties, local and general, and of their wise perception of what 
should be done and should not be done. 1 felt sure that the cause 
would be carried on safely and to ultimate triumph. 

The greatest and most snl)tle element we had to fight was 
the existence of caste. It took a great deal of the fire of the 
Holy S[)irit to burn u^) and forever extinguish this wicked, miser- 



83 

fibli!, wri'tcliL'cl hrii'.sy thai one innii is lietlL-i' lliaii miullicr Ij^'caiise 
of the color of tin- piiiineiit tluit undurlifs his skin. As tiu- truth, 
liowevcr, is mighty and will prevail, so in linic tlu' aliolilionists of 
the country came to re^'ai'd thi' man and the woman who were 
negroes, no les.s entitled to their honor, re.s[)ect a,nd love because 
of their color than they would have hi'ou if they were white. How 
thorou2;hly interwoven into the fabric of American society this 
.feeling of cast,; is, can be t'usily s/e:i in the feelings of southern 
white men and wonu'n towaid negro men ami women, notwith- 
standing the latter are no longer by Liw regaitU'il as cliattel 
slaves. It will take, I fear, a Iran livd vears and p -rhaps two hun- 
dred 3"ears to rcjot out from the minds of tlu' southeiai pe(^|ile the 
idea that manhood in any peisou knows nothing detiimeiital to 
another's nmnhood because of the physical dirfei-entiations wliich 
exist between the two persons. ^leanwhile in ord;'i- tli.it lhi> 
should be brought aliout, every human being who piizes lii> own 
manhood as of Divine origin, should set' to it t!iat in iiis inrei-- 
coui'se with other hum in !)eings. lie should recognize the !)i\ine 
origin of their manhood and i)ut himself into fi'llow^Iiip with t'aem 
on that basis, for it is true that only as men can illu.-.trale in their 
persoruil [lives their se ise of the dignity of their m inhood can 
they I)e made influential and helpful in the extii[iatiou of caste. 

A religion that recognizes and justities the exist.^nce of caste 
in its members may be successful in securing to itself I'epresenta- 
tives who will openly profess their l)e]ief in it, but it nt'\er should 
l>e permitted by any of its votaries to be den(jminated Christian, 
for in Jesns Clirist there is neither Jew nor (ireek. bond noi- fi-ee, 
male nor female, black uoi' white, but all art' one man in Him. 

1 KO.AI 1H-:V. WM. W. .SILVESTEK, S. T. D. 

riiiLADicm-iiiA. Ai)ril 22, l.S'Jo. 

I should ptirticularly like to be present at the commemora- 
tion meeting of old Anti-Sla\-erv Days to l)e held in Danvi-is on 
the 26tli inst. Hut I cannot accojni)lish it. 

I never was a,n auti-slasei-v m ri from a politic d standp >int ; 
always, however, 1 thorouglily disliked slavery and was as glad as 
3'iy one that eireuniitaiici's so fell out that its overthrow lu'came 
lawfully possil)le and its hlmik i<i<iln no longer disgra;H'd our 
nation or satiriz'd the uauu' of freedom. 

1 have no doubt you will have an enthusiastic and nieinora- 
' 'i- meeting. Such a meeting some years hence will be im[)Ossi- 
and I am glad it has occurred to some one to call together 
', .i.> commemoration assembly. 



84 

FROM REV. WM. H. FURNESS, D. U. 

PHiLADELriuA, Apiil 23, 1893. 

It would l)e :x pleasure beyond words, my dear friend, to meet 
the first apostles of Freedom for the Slave with whom my friends 
associate me as one of that honored Band. But I have always 
considered myself an eleventh hour man in the sacred Cause with- 
out the excuse of the men in the Parable whom no one had called 
to work. I was called by the Divine Voice and I ran and hid 
myself, for I was a long time afraid. Happily I learned that no 
one who serves the truth, even if he sacrifice his life for it, can do 
as much for the truth, no, not by a hundred fold, as the service of 
the truth will do for him. I learned also that Slavery was as 
much more hurtful to the white race than to the African as it is 
to do wrong or abet it than to suffer it. When the War broke 
out we expected to hear the yell of Insurrection at the South, but 
there came the plaintive sound of prayers and hymns, and the 
Slaves continued to work for the families whose heads were 
fighting to keep the Slaves in bondage. 

Elmerdon said that " eloquence was dog clioap at the Anti- 
Slavery Meetings before the War;" and for tli' i)jst of reasons 
the Abolitionists had possession of the fountains whence flowed 
rivers of the waters of life. But I am growing garrulous. May 
Heaven liless the Meeting on the 26 inst., and make it a season 
of i-efresliing to all attending it ! 

FROM MR. .JOHN M. LENNOX. 

Boston P. O., April 23, 1893. 

Please accept my sincere thanks for your kind invitatioii to 
the Anti-Slavery Reunion. I feel i)roud of being one of the old 
Garrison Abolitionists, and also that my cousin, Charles Lennoj 
Remond, of Salem, was one of the active workers in the cause. 
I hope and expect to be present on the occasion. 






FROM MRS. MARTHA WALDO GREENE. 

East Gi!ef.navicii, R. I., April 23, 1893. 

I thank you most sinct'rely for your circular letter whic 
reached me yesterday, but I am compelled to foreso the pleasur 
it would l)e to me to connncmorate with you the old Anti-Slaver 
days on the 26th inst. 

Those old Anti-Slavei'y days 1 There never were sucl 
before ! Thei-e can never be such again ! Tiiey were da3'S whe 
we forgot ourselves in our wish to serve the poorest and mo^ 



85 

dest-rted of ;iU God's creatures, and wlien to do this cost rei^uta- 
tion and life. 

But even tiien, as God so wills it, the law of eompensatiou 
was true to itself. 

In my father's house no pleasure eould exceed ours, if 8. 8. 
Foster, Parker I'illsbury, Abby Kelly and others, tired from the 
contliet, eould visit us for some days, or even for an hour's rest, 
and tell us of some new recruit of the Anti-Slavery Anny or of 
the safe escape by the under-ground railroad of some [)Oor 
fugitive. 

1 do not forget how the story of Amos Dresser roused my 
indignation, as he told of the tar and feathers, and his Bibles 
wrapped in old copies of the "Liberator;" and later on, when 
Henry B. Stanton hardly escaped a similar fate at the hands of 
our own citizens, being sent b}' my father to Providence at an 
hour when the mob were off their guard, I, as driver, being 
unsuspected of complicity in the case. Then there were re- 
proaches for riding and walking with Frederick Douglass, ston- 
ings by the boys when attending Anti-Slavery Conventions at a 
neighl)oring town, and charges of infidelity because of denying 
the Christianity that bought and sold human beings. Yet none 
of these things moved us. Never was service rendered more 
freely in behalf of any truth that brought richer reward. Years 
afterwards Abby Kelly said, '-Talk of what we have done for the 
Anti-Slavery Cause I ^Vilat has not the Anti-Slavery Cause done 
for us/' ' 

Ye do well, dear friends, to keep the memory green of such 
times and such men. God bless you I 

FROM MRS. FANNY G. VILLARD. 

Nkw Yohk, April 2od, 181)3. 

1 an) extremely soiiy that 1 am unal)le to be present at the 
meeting to be held in Danvers on A[)ril 2(), in commemoration of 
"Old Anti-Slavery Days." 

The present generation can hardly be made to realize the 
intense excitement that attended the anti-slavery movement and 
the spirit of self-sacrifice and of mart\rdoni that aidmated the 
men and women who saw in the |)erson of tlie drspised slave, 
Christ himself crucified. 

If l)y frecpiently recalling the devotion to conscience, the 
"(inflinching determination and the heroic forgetfulness of self of 
the abolitionists, it will be possible to inspire i)eo[)le to imitate 
their noble exam})le, great will be the gain to humanity. 



8G 

FROM MR. DANIEL RICKETSON. 

New l>F.DifOUD, Mass., April 24th, 1893. 

Wliile I cordial!}^ unite witli the " Dnuvers Histoineai 
Society" in the eouiiiiemoratioii of "•Old Anti-Shivery Days." 
I regret that my advanced age and its attendant infirmities will 
prevent my acceptance of jxiur kind invitation. 

Among the honored guests named in your circular as expected 
to be present, I remember Parker Pillsbury, a " true son of 
thunder," who never spared friend or foe in his eloquent apjjealt! 
for down-trodden humanit}'. I remember also in one of our 
conventions in old " Liberty Hall." he declared that these " cof- 
ton aristocrats." then in complicity with the slave holders., 
'''• could turn all Heaven into Birmingham, make weavers of the 
Angels, and drown the music of the morning stars with the eter- 
nal din of Spindles :" at wdiich one of the audience, who sat a 
little before me, rose fi'om his seat and walked out of the hall. 
Among the older members of our ftLnssachusetts Abolition Society, 
I remember with respect. Rev. Sanuiel May, JNIrs. Lucy Stoni", 
and Mr. John W. Hutchinson, the last of the "• nest of brothers 
with a sister in it," whose united voices so charmed all, and did 
such good service for the cause of human freedom. I doubt not 
the sainted name of John Greenleaf Wliittier, whose ringing 
notes so often sounded the prophetic voice of Freedom, will be 
among those wdiose spirit will be recognized as with you. I was 
but an humble lal)orer in the great Anti-Slavery struggle, though 
to the "manner born." 

FROM MR. WALTER 15. ALLEN. 

Lynx, April 24, 1893. 

To l)e reckoned a friend of liumanity worthy of an iuvitntion 
to vour pi'oposed connnemorative feast, is indeed a compliment. 
To meet on that occasion a few of the remaining veterans of the 
great Anti Slavery Conflict, and to heav their voices once more, 
w'ill be a crowning joy. 1 therefore accept your kind invitation 
with thanks, and shall endeavor to ])e present . 

FROM MR. ROBERT ADAMS. 

Fall Rivkr, Mass., April 24, 1893. 

ILivinu' received your cii'culars, through Mrs. LivermoreV 
kindness, 1 hereby wish to express my gratitude for the same: 
also to congratulate your Society in their effort to call together 
the survivors of that great battle for jioor humanity. By this 



87 

movement you will affoid much jilensure to the vetei'nus, and also 
have jx siiatoh of history, which is daily liein<i luuicd in ohscuiitv. 

The histoiT. of the fugitives, if written, would lill nianv 
volumes of exceedingly interesting literatuie, which might form a 
new series of " tiction founded on fact," f(jr the young genera- 
tion, who are entirely ignorant of the sufferings of the slave, as 
well as the hardships endured by the pioneers in the struggle for 
freedom. 

I I'ecentl}' visited '•'Freemason's Hall,'" in London, where 
the P^irst World's Convention was held iu 1840, and was shown 
the gallery where Lueretia Mott, with the delegates from America 
(n)y father being one of them), sat^ while the question was ilis- 
cussed ii-fieflier to admit her ax, a dtle(jate! 

I will take pleasure in being [)reseut at your meeting. 

FROM MIJ. WILL1A:\I D. THOMPSON. 

Lynx, April 2-t, ly.lS. 

I I'xpect to be at the meeting, as I belong to a fa mil v that 
was eaily identilied with the cause. My father, the late William 
D. Thompson, was one of the oldest abolitionists, and our house 
was always open not only to those who were engaged in Anti- 
Slavery work, but to all other icforniers as they came along. 
M}' brother, Kev. Pklwin Thompson, as every one may know, was 
one of the lirst to organize societies, in connection with the Kev. 
Mr. Torrey who lost his life in a JNlaryland prison. As many 
who may l)e present at the meeting will remember, j\li-. Thomi)son 
was also an active worker in the 'J'emperance cause. Our house 
being one of the first to entertain agitators of e\-ery soil. I had a 
good chance to know something of what was done at Lvnn. T 
well remember the mol)bing theie of (Jeorge 'I'honipson ol' Imiu- 
huuL and was present at the meeting: and I recall the wav he 
got out of the church. As he wore a wliiti' liat, of c</Uisi' he 
would be easily identified ; so one of the friends, who took in th(> 
situation, removed his own and put it on IMr. 'I'liompson's head. 
Thus no one knew him as he wenl out and passed through the 
lines that were formed to tlu' Imnse of iMr. Henshaw on the 
opposite side of the street. Lynn was a hot bed of agitations, 
and it was the lirst place of the negro car trouble, which began 
W'ith the putting of Douglass out of the train, an act which led to 
great excitement. * * * * As the friends of the ;U)olition 
movement have mostly gone, it is well for the few who remain to 
meet and talk over the doings of the |)ast and icvive the old 
memories. Their labors were not in vain. A great work has 



88 

^■been aceoinplished. I hope that your meetiug will be a success 
aud that those who ma}' be present will have a day of rejoicing. 
It cannot be long before the last remnant of the Old Guard will 
have gone, and let those who are now left have a full share of 

..the glor}'. 

FROM MR. GEORGE VV. CLARK. 

Detroit, Mich., April 24, 1893. 

' I have received from your Secretary an invitation to be an 
attendant upon your contemplated meeting on the 26th inst., in 
commemoration of " Old Anti-Slavery Days," for which I am 
sincerely grateful. It would give me great pleasure were I able 
to attend and participate in what 1 have no doubt will be a 
gathering of intense interest. But untoward circumstances will 
deprive me of the happiness of being one of such a noble com- 
pany on such an eventful occasion. I was converted to the 
Temperance and Anti-Slavery Reforms when a boy about 16 — by 
the first address on those questions I ever heard — by that eloquent 
and powerful orator, that Demosthenes of America, Theodore D. 
Weld. 1 entered heart and soul into the Reforms I had thus 
oarly espoused. I had inherited from my father and mother — 
both good singers — a soul for music ; aud saw its power and 
mtluence in social circles where I was called on for " Songs" 
when a mere boy, and at once conceived the idea of introducing 
this influence and power in connection with my lectures on Tem- 
perance and Anti-Slavery, which I did, aud I was not only not 
disappointed, but highly gratified with the effect. Many scores 
of drinkers and drunkards came to hear the songs^ and were 
converted. I had set music to the best songs I could then find 
on these subjects, from (Jowper, Mrs. Hemans, Massey, Douglas 
Jerrold, Pierpont, AV'hittier, Longfellow and other poets. It took 
like "■ wild-fire" as the}' used to say, and I was invited to all 
parts of the country to render these songs in the great reform 
conventions, and at the close of these gatherings was called on 
for copies of them and was urged to publish them, which I did in 
"The Temperance Songster," "The Liberty Minstrel," '••The 
Free Soil Minstrel," "Songs 'of the Free," "Clark's Reform 
Song Book," " The Harp of Freedom," '' Lyrics of the Lodges," 
"And Songs For The Times," etc. 

I have now traveled and lectured, rendering these songs, in 
24 of our states and in Canada, and my interest and zeal in these 
Reforms is as ardent and unabated as ever. I used to be told 
.forty and fifty years :igo, if I lived to be as old as that gentle- 



8U 

miiu whose iiaiue i>s so fuiailiar, the venerable Fatlier Methuselali, 
I would never live to see the day when slavery would be abolished 
iu this Country ! Thank God I have lived to see that day and 
nearly thirty years beyond and am some years behind Methuselah 
yet ! And 1 congratulate you, fellow workers, that you have 
lived to see, and now to celebrate, the Glorious but Costly Vic- 
tory I 

1 am now as eager iu the fray and as anxious to see the over- 
throw of the liquor power as J was to see the overthrow of the 
slave power ! The same God of justice and righteousness rules 
and reigns, and — 

"Come what tliere may to stand in the wav, 
That day the Workl siiall see, 
Wheu the Mialtt with the lii{fht 
And the Trittlt shall be ! ' 

And now I desire to be affectionately remembered to my old 
friends, John W. Hutchinson, Parker Fillsbury and Mrs. Lucy 
ytone. 

FROM DEACON JOSHUA T. EVERETT. 

Westminster, April 24, ''Jo. 

I have received your circular inviting me to the gathering of 
Anti-Slavery friends of the days of " Auld Lang Syne." 

It would give me inexpressiljlc pleasure to meet the dear old 
friends named in your circular next AVednesday. But I cannot 
do so for two reasons. First, I am just moving and as busy as 
the honey bee iu June. Second, I intend to visit Providence, 11. 
I., on Tuesday or Wednesday this week. And my age, 87 years, 
would seem to be a barrier, but it would not, as I enjoy pretty 
good health. 

r>ut nearly till our co-laborers iu that Philanthropic and 
Godly enterprise have gone to their rest and reward in Heaven. 
In my generation nearly all have gone. Sixty years ago 1 was 
chosen to rei)resent my native town (my lirst election), Prince- 
ton, in the legislature of Massachusetts. In the lowei- house 
there were 540 to 550 members. Today there are only three of 
us living. I must confess to a sort of loneliness, but iu)t of 
tuelancholy. J formed the acquaintance of l)rother (iarrisou soon 
after that period and enjoyed his intimate frieudshii) till his 
death and I attended his funeral. For some lifteen to twenty 
years I was elected President of the County Anti-Slavery Society. 
Then we held more than quarterly meetings. And in the north 
part of the county we constructed a number of unseen highways. 



90 

over which the poor shive was helfied ou to Canada. Yo,^, fleeing 
to Canada to escape the infernal cUitches of tlie shwe-holder ! I 
remember one very fine young woman about thirty years old, with 
her babe nearh^ a year okl, V)rono;ht to our depot in Everettville 
by an Abolition friend in the part of our county south of our 
depot. The woman was almost as white and good lool^ing as a 
certain very fine lady in onr neighborhood, to whom she bore a 
striking resemblance. And the neighbors were invited in to see 
how exactly the slave woman looked like Mrs. Beaman, the neigh- 
bor. Then after giving her a good dinner and some things she 
wanted, we helped her on to another depot, and so she got on to 
Canada. I wish I could shake the hands of all the true souls that 
will gather at the Danvers Convention. I received a long and 
very interesting letter from John Hutchinson a few months since. 
And I wish I could listen to his charming songs next Wednesday. 
I trust your Convention will be an interesting and happy 
gathering. I have snatched the half hour from the cares and 
laboi's of the day to answer your kind invitation to be [)resent. 

FROM MR. WILLIAM STONE. 

New York, April 24, 1803. 

I am in receipt of your circular of April 13, inviting me to 
attend the meeting to be held on Wednesday, commemorative of 
"Old Anti-Slavery Days." 

T regret that I shall be unable to accept j'our invitation, as I 
heartil}' approve of your gathering. 

The present generation knows so little of the great move- 
ment which prepared the North for its successful conflict with the 
slave power and which resulted in the destruction of the slave 
S3'stem in this country, it is well that it should, before it is too 
late, hear the story from tlie lips of those who were actors in that 
movement and who endured and suffered for its sake. 

FROM MR. DAVID MEAD. 

Daxversport, April 24, 1893. 

Your kind note of special invitation to attend the meeting 
"Commemorative of Old Anti-Slavery Days," was gratefully 
received, and it would give us gi'cat pleasure to be able to be 
present on tliat occasion. But 1 fear that neitlier Mrs. Mead or 
myself will be able to attend. 

The object of the call is truly a laudalile one ; and as T 
nnderstand it, it is for an expression of sacred rememl)rance of 
the worthy men and women who in times of great peril willingly 



riski':l tliiMi' lives and Li:i\-e of tlu'ii- uicaiis for the abolition of that 
curse, and sum of all iulminaii cruelties — southern >laveiy. 
(iMr. and ]Mis. Mead were lioth present at the nieeting.) 

FROM :\I1{S. ANNK E. DAMON. 

CoNcoKi), A|)iil 'i'), is;);5. 
To save you the trouble of a fruitless call on Aunt liinelow, 
I wi'ite to say that I called there this moi-ning and found she hud 
btu'ii ill, and from weakness was unable to hear or see as well as 
usual. I do not think you could eomnuinieate with her at all. I 
succeeded in lettin<j' her know of the celebi'ation :it Dnnvers to- 
morrow, and she said she would like to send her love to nil the 
survivors of the first organi;cation of anti-slavery workers. 

(•* Aunt Biffelow," now eighty years of age, was Ann Hagnr, 
of Weston, Mass., and INIrs. Damon is her niece. She married 
Francis F. Bigelow, also of Weston, and removed with him to 
Concord, where she has continued to reside since her husband's 
death in ISTo. With Mr. and Mrs. Minot Pratt, Mrs. Al)iel 
AVheeler, Miss Sophia Thoreau, Mrs. Emerson, and others, she 
was a most earnest, devoted, and iuflueutial al)olitionist from the 
start and to the end. She welcomed to her house most of the 
well-known anti-slavery orators and friends, and also mnny a 
fugitive slave. It was there that '' Shadi'ach" was seci-etly 
In-ought l»y Lewis llayden and a JMr. Smith in the inght or very 
early morning, when he had escaped the clutch of his pursuing 
master, and of the wicked officers who had arrested him and con- 
fined him in the Boston Court House. Through the kindness of 
Mr. and Mrs. Bigelow, and Mr. and JMrs. Nathan Brooks, he was 
tendei'ly cared tor nnd safely spii-ited away to Montreal, where 
sometime afterward 1 sought him out in one of my vacation trijis 
and found him keeping a small store, and bi'ight Jind cheerful. 
In a late int(>i'view witli Mrs. P>igelow, who had come to lie more 
comfortable in lie:dth than in A])ril. she g;i\-e .Airs. Damon and 
myself a most thrilling account of all the circumstnuces of the 
escai)e and welcome refen-ed to, and of the rem:irkal»le w;iy in 
whi(!h the peeled and hunted bondman gained his freedom liy tlu; 
" Undergrounrl Railroad.'' a. v. v.) 

FROM MK. J. M. W. VERKINOTON. 

Chelska, Ai)ril -2'), KS9;i. 

I thaid\ von most sincerely for the invitation to attend the 
meeting in conuuemoration of old Anti-Slavery Days tomorrow. 



02 

It would indeed be refreshing and delightful to me to be i)resent 
aud to listen to voices which I heard nearly half a century ago, 
in the storm aud stress of the Anti-Slavery struggle, but I fear I 
must deny luyself the pleasure, as I have been unable to make an 
arrangement, as I had hoped I might do, by which to escape from 
official duty on that day. If it is possible for me to get to Dan- 
gers, even at the eleventh hour, I shall rejoice to do so. The 
idea of such a gathering was a hai»py one aud the occasion can 
liardly fail to be one of surpassing interest and enjoyment. 

(Mr. Yerrlugton, so long the printer of Mr. Garrison's 
lAberator, was present at the meeting, notwithstanding his fear 
that he might not be able to attend.) 

FROM COL. THOMAS W. HIGGINSON. 

Cambridge, INIass., April 25, 1893. 

1 am sorry to be prevented l»y another engagement from 
takino' part in your commemoration of Anti-Slavery days. Judg- 
ing by your list of speakers it will be a good and genuine meet- 
ing. I'have l)een invited to several such meetings Avhere some of 
the most prominent si)eakers had either known nothing of the 
Anti-Slavery movement, or had bitterly opi)Osed it. 

FROM MR. THEODORE D. WELD. 

NouAvooD, April 26, 1893. 

Dear Old Abolition Friends : — IJeloved brothers and sisters. 
I send you all my ferveut '' All Hail" and "God-speed," and am 
with reluctance al)sent from your midst. 

FROM MR. CHARLES E. GRAVES. 

Hartford, Conn., April 2G, 1893. 

Many thanks for your kind invitation, which I was unable to 
accept. I should have enjoyed seeing you at Concord and joiu- 
iug you for the convention of old abolitionists at Danvers, espec- 
ially in memory of my father (George Graves, of Rutland, Ver- 
mont.) He was an oi'iginal Anti-Slavery man from about 1840, 
and was therefore under the political ban through all his earlier 
manhood. I can remember having my fights when a small l)oy 
for being charged by my mates with belonging to the " nigger 
party." So that the names of all those brave men of principle, 
the original Anti-Slaver}' men, were household names with me. 
I can remember my father's attending a great Anti-Slavery con- 



93 

veiition at 15uston whon Saini.el Fessoiulcn, of ]\[aiiu', lucsidcA. 
and his i'ei)ealin>2; come of the words of his address. When I 
got to be a young man 1 used to Ik; rather disgnsled witli my 
father's faith — a blind faith as it seemed to me — espeeially when. 
I ones heard him say. " I hope to live to see Ameriean Slavery 
swept from the Eartli." 1 thought his zeal made him rather 
wild. ])Ut 111' lived to see it, all the same. 

. FROM REV. S. F. SMITH. 

Davenpout, Iowa, April 27, li^l);!. 

Your esteemed note of invitation was forwarded to me here 
and received this A. M. Of course it was out of iny i)ower to 
accept, but I thank you none the less for the invitation. Some 
of the names on 3'our i)rogram are well known to me and highly 
honored ; and it would be a i)leasure to me to join them. It is a 
worthy object to cherish the remembrances of the great pastj 
prophetic of a greater fntui'e ; and as the names of the workers 
in those early days grow fewer, with the lapse of years they grow 
dealer. The lives of such a band have not been in vain. 

At your I'equest, I enclose for your use an autograi)h cojjv of 
the hymn, "My country, 'tis of thee." Please present it to tl.'e 
Historical Society, with the assurance of my higli esteem. 

FROM MRS. HARRIET M. LOTHROP. 

("MARGARET SYUXEV.") 

Boston, Mass., A[iril 28, 181)3. 

Your invitation to the Danvei's Historical Society's celebra- 
tion of old anti-slavery days on April 2Gth, was received the day 
before and should have been answered at once. I could not pos- 
sil)ly go, as you know that 1 am fastened at my desk. t»nt I should 
have written you a letter, as all my sympathies are witii you and 
your society. 1 was brought up in an atmosi)here that was wholly 
in accord with this object. Some time 1 want to tell you how 
much and how far this sympathy of mine extends to the '' old 
anti-slavery days." I should have written you and the society a 
letter expressing my sympatliies, lint 1 had not a minute at my 
command. I congi-atulate you ii|)on tiie success which 1 see by 
the })apei's that your society achieves, and I trust you will make 
this an annual affair, as we are too apt to foiget the struggle of 
those earlv davs in the success that has been achieved by it. 

Among many other letters, also I'cceived liy the I'resideiit 
or Secretary, were similar comnuuiications from Hon. E. L. Pierce? 



94 

IJev. lulwiiid K. Hale, D. I)., Kev. Chailes G. Ames, and Miss 
Mary Willey. of Uoston ; IJev. 1'. A. llaiiaford, of New Yoi'k ; 
Eicliard II. Dana, P'.^q., of Cainl)ii(l;ue ; ^iiss Eli/ubeth A. Clapp, 
of South Boston ; Mr. Ciiarles Bnffiun, of Lynn ; Mr. Lewis Ford, 
of Nortli Abington ; Rev. C. A. Staples, of Lexington ; Mr. and 
Mrs. R. P. Ilallowell, of West Medford : Henry I\I. Brooks, 
Esq., .Secretary of the Essex Institute, of Salem ; ftlrs. Marcia 
E. P. Hunt, of Weymouth; Rev. O. S. Butler, of Georgetown, 
&c., etc. 



Biographical and Other Notes. 



'J'liosi' who took :iu nctivt' part in the i)roi'C'e(liiiiis of the 
nioethig had iiioi-e or less to say, as they had been paitieuhirly 
requested to do, aljout their own personal experience in eonneetion 
with anti-slavery work or times. However well known to the 
pul)lie many of them, at least, may be, perhai)s it will lie grateful 
t(j friends who may chance to read these pages, if we give here 
some brief l)iographical details res[)ecting them all, partially to 
supplement whatever accounts they gave of themselves, and so 
complete, as well as we may, the story of the Reunion. Each one 
of them had a right to be heard, and it is only to be regretted tluit 
that there was not space for others who weie present and who 
also had important testimony to l)ear. 

IJEV. WILLIAM H. FLSII, SEN. 

I\Ir. Eish is a native of New[»ort, 11. L. where he was born 
on the •2')th of ]\Lirch, 1812. His parents were Eeleg and Alice 
(Sisson) Eish, lioth natives of Portsmouth, near Newport. At 
the age of 15 he went to Providence to leain the jeweller's trade, 
and made aood use of the lil)rai'y and lectures of the i\h'chanic's 
Association in that city. In .lune, IN;;.'), he nianied y\nua I'diza 
Wright, daughter of I'^bcn and Penelope U'right, all ol' Pi'ovi- 
dence. 'I'liei'c Mi'. l"'isli, (hiring the previous year, had heai'd tlu' 
eloquent (ieorge rhonipson speak on the subject of shixciv, and 
from that tinn' he dates liis active interest in the abolition cause, 
as the friend, who was to be his wile, could likewise date herown.. 
I\Ir. Wright having decitled to remove witli his family to Fremont, 
111., where some Provid.'ncc f i iends had already settled, IMr. and 
]\Irs. Eish accompanied them and thei'e taught together in the 
village a private school. Erom time to time, earnest discussions 
of slavery took place in tiieir school-house and naturally had the 
effect to intensify their zeal for emancipation. Here also IMr. 
Eish studied for the ministry and occasionally pi'eaclu-d as oppor- 
tunit V otfcicd, ha\ing some time |)rc\iou.sly piiiposed to make that 
his calling. In 1S;>7, after tv»o vears at the west, he returned 



96 

with his wife to New Eiighmd, passing tlirough Alton, III., only 
ti few days before Lovejoy was shot by a pro-slavery mob, and 
arriving at the east in time to be in toucli with the great indigna- 
tion meeting at Fanenil Hall, at wliich Dr. Chauning spoke 
and yonng Wendell Phillips delivered the maiden speech that 
gave him immortal fame. 

Mr. Fish was soon called to lie the jiastor of the societ}^ of 
Universalists (of the Restorationist school), in Melville, Worcester 
Connty, Mass. The invitation having been accepted, he was 
dnly ordained to the ministry. Rev. Panl Dean of Boston, Rev. 
Adin Ballon. Rev. Charles Hndson (afterward member of Con- 
gress), and Rev. Samuel Clark (Unitarian) of Uxbridge, taking 
part in the services. The society had been under the fostering 
care of Mr. Ballon, and was therefore of decided anti-slavery 
sympathies. Gariison and his more noted co-laborers came from 
time to time and were gladly heard by the people. Jleanwhile 
Mr. Ballon's Hopedale community was giving promise of its good 
success as one of the better class of socialistic experiments of the 
period. Mi-. Fish was one of its original members and was con- 
ferred with from the first by its noble founder, l)ut still he re- 
mained at Melville and continued his work there for 9 years, or 
until 184G, when he went with his family to reside in Connecticut, 
where for nine years more he did missionai-y work and occasion- 
ally lectured in the service of the Massachnsetts Anti-Slavery 
Society, sometimes speaking at social gatherings in company with 
Lucy Stone and other advocates of reform. Then followed still 
another term of nine years, spent in central New York, while 
preaching Liberal Christianity, and lecturing on slavery and the 
Hopedale Socialism in as many as fifty different towns, being 
aided by the American Anti-Slavery Society, and by Rev. Samuel 
J. May and his Unitarian friends. His principal point of work 
and care was Cortland, where he gathered an Independent Liberal 
Christian Society, but where there was a dominant pro-slavery 
sentiment of the most bigoted and virulent character, the Presby- 
terians excommunicating one of their church-members for going 
to hear on Sundays such " infidels" as Garrison and Phillips and 
Emerson and Starr King. But other brilliant men came in long 
succession, to give light in the darkness, Greeley, Pierpont, Beech- 
er, Foster, Parker, Horace Mann, and many more of like spirit 
and renown, and our Cortland minister's hand is sufficiently seen 
in what was done to provide such a dispensation where it was so 
nnich needed. Yet the New York Presbytery and Synod con- 
lirmed the action of the local cimrch and did all that was possible 
to terrorize the faithful and keep tlicin in al)ject submission to 
their Avill. 



07 

Central New York witnessed to the most activt'. stiiriiii:" 
period of Mr. I-"i--irs litV'. Gei-rit Sniitii wanted iiini to srt'le at 
Peterboro, N. Y., wlieii' he liad liis own home. Imt he ciiosc 
rather to make .Seituate, JNIass., the seene ol' his next pastorate, 
and hither he came in ].S()5 to toil on I'or Christianity, lor Free- 
dom, for Temperance, and for Woman's Rights, for twenty yi-ais 
more, in the same spirit of brave and conscientions ticUdity to 
duty as had marked eaeli and all of his previous terms of serviee. 
His ministry has extended over iialf a century, and the whole of 
it has been consecrated to Christ and Christianity, to many noble 
reforms and to the best movements of his counti'v and a<ic. The 
wife of his youth has gone l>efore him, and he now li\es with his- 
son, Kev. William H. Fish, Jr., pastor of the Unitarian Churcli 
in Dedham, an object of love and veneration with all who know 
him, but with none moi'e than with those who faithfully wrought 
with him in all the "Thirty Y'ears' War" against Slavery. It is 
grateful to hear their warm and acconUint testimony t<j the high 
worth of this venerable man, and to his long and arduous devotion 
to Truth and Kight. Few are more deserving than he. 

.JOHN W. HUTCH INSON. 

Mr. Hutchinson was born in Milford, N. H., .Tan. 4, 1H21. 
In coming to Danvers to attend the Commemorative meeting, he 
visited the home of his first ancestors in America. His earliest 
progenitor in this country, Kichard Hutchinson, emigrated fi'oni 
Finglaiid, and in 1G34 settled in that part of the original townshi]> 
of Salem which first took the name of "Salem Village" and 
afterward the name of Danvers^ with whose First Parish many 
of his descendants have ever since been most honorably con- 
nected. One of these, Col. Israel Hutchinson, liaving fought at 
Lake George and Ticonderoga in 17')8 and scaled the Heights of 
Abraham under Wolfe in 1759, commanded one of the Danvers 
companies in the Battle of Lexington and served with great dis- 
tincti(jn through the Revolutionary war. Another descendant, of 
the fourth generation, bought a tract of land in Middleton, IVIass., 
(adjoining Danvers), and another in Amherst, N. H. A son of 
the latter, also named Joseph, was born in "Salem Village," but 
settled in Middleton, and one of his children was Klisha, who was 
born in Middleton, l)ut removed to Amherst and lived in that pait 
of the town whi('h in 1794 was incorporated under the name of 
INIilford. A son of Klisha was Jesse, who was born in Middleton, 
in 1778, but went with his father to New Hampshire in the follow- 
ing year. At INIilford he married Polly Hastings in the year 
IhUO, and it is said that " it was while she was singing one day in 
a village choir that she first bv her voice attracted the attention 



98 

of lior futiue husb;iiKl." Both gave early indications of unusual 
musical talent, and it is not strange that so many gifted vocalists 
api)eared amongst their sixteen children : Jesse, Daniel, Noah B., 
Polly, Andrew B., Zephaniah K., Caleb, Joshua, Jesse, Benjamin 
P., Joseph Judson, ^Sarah Khoda, John Wallace, Asa Burnham, 
Elizabeth and Abby J- 

The first quartet of the family seems to have consisted of 
Joshua, Judson, John and Asa. Very early in life they began to 
evince a passionate love of music and a real genius for it, and 
the songs which thus soon they sang in the home and the village 
church, with violin accompaniments and the added voices of 
Rhoda and Abby, and doubtless others of the family circle, awak- 
ened much interest in the neighborhood and were a presage of 
their future success. Ere long we find the four brothers engaged 
in giving concerts in Wilton and Nashua, New Hampshire, and in 
Lynn, Mass., and in several or more of the eastern towns and 
cities. Salem, Newbuiyport, Portsmouth, and Kennel)unk, Abby 
and Jesse joining them in their public performances at some of 
these places. Paltry returns rewarded them for their exertions 
and at length they all returned to Milford at the earnest request 
of their father, except Jesse, who settled down to other kind of 
work at L3'nu. But this was not to be the fate of the Ilutchiu- 
sons. The way for a more fortunate campaign was bye and bye 
.opened to them, though not unattended with failures and disap- 
pointments. They sang in many places in New Hampsshire, Ver- 
mont, Massachusetts and New Yt)rk, Abby still being a compan- 
ion. After another return to their home, their interest in the 
nuti-slavery cause was aroused by a convention held at Milford 
and conducted by William Lloyd Garrison, N. P. Rogers, and 
others. They now began to sing for freedom, and thus they 
entered upon their great life-work. '"• These songs, in connection 
with their Temperance Melodies," says a writer, "brought them 
into great repute, and during a subsequent visit to New York 
they complied with an invitation to be present at the Anniversary 
of the American Anti-slavery Society, and afterwards at the 
Anniversary of the American Temperance Society, where they 
were greeted with the utmost enthusiasm." Thence they pro- 
ceeded to Philadelphia and Washington, and subsequently sailed 
to England, giving concerts in such cities as Liverpool, London, 
Manchester and Dublin, and making the acquaintance of Dickens. 
Macready, the Howitts, and other notables. This was in 1845. 
The delighted crowds that greeted them abroad only added to 
their fame in America and their hosts of friends and admirers 
>iiere were oidy too glad to welcome them back to the service in 



Rhich they li:i(l Iktc enlislccl :iik1 which lu'vcr iicLnled their voices 
more than tlieii. 

And still their betuitil'iil work went on, nor is it i)ossiI)le to 
measnre the good they wroiiiiht, as they went throngh the north- 
ern states, everywhere inspiring the nmltitndes with a deeper and 
more ardent love of lihert}' by their wondei'ful ])Ower of song. 
Their \ersi's were <;f the |)oi)ular sort, dashed off at once as thu 
iiecasion prompted or called, and modest in their claims to poetic 
3iierit, but admirably adapted to })lease tlie people who heard 
Uiem and kindle their enthusiasm. Popular assc'mblies ne\'cr lind 
of hearing them sung by the IJntidiiusous, and the announcement 
Ihat these friends would be i)resent and sing at any appointed 
meeting was (pnte enough to secure a full and eagi'r audience. 
Abby, whose recent death has touched with sadness so many 
hearts, was married in 184'.) to Mr. Ludlow I'atton, a, broker ;ind 
Itanker in New York, and in consequence ceased from her moic 
public work, but John and Asa and Judson clubbed together anew 
and still continued their mission in behalf of the slave until 18."i,"), 
TS'hcn, with others, they established a new town in Wisconsin ami 
tailed it ILUc/iiason. J i 18G2, the settlement was destroyed by 
a band of oOO Sioux Indians, whereupon the brothers for a time 
divided their care betw^-en farming and giving concerts. The 
iyi'e was struck to unwonted music, as John, with his son Henry 
and his daughter \'iola, children by his wife Fanny Buruham, of 
Lowell, whom he had m uried Feb. 21, 1843, went down to the 
Potomac and sang their songs to the soldiers in camp during the 
war, the younger generations of the family, as the Danvers meet- 
ing also bore witness, i)i)sses.sing an abundant share of the divine 
gift of the eldiMs ; and even while we write the veueral)le and 
special subject of our sketch, still fresh, and earnest, and active, 
is plying his loved vocation at the great World's Fair, and is 
•doubtless gladdening human hearts there, also, wich new strains 
»f the •• good time coming." For more th;in fifty years he has 
given voice antl pen, body and s(jul, freely and unreservedly, to 
the service of humanity- 
It was our privilege to be one of his guests as lie celebrated 
the seventieth anniversary of his birthday at his pretty residence 
©n High Rock, Lynn, a commanding eminence which he himself 
and his brother Jesse were among the first to settle. The wife had 
died several years before, but the children and grandchildren were 
there, with Abby and her husband from New York, and a great 
aumber of old friends from the city and from places more or less 
femote, not a few of whom had long been his distinguished asso- 
«iates in his philanthropic labors. The music was as delicious as 



100 

we had found it a luilf ctMitui'v Ijefore, and the greeting-.s wrre us 
lieaity as the bright tlovveis were profuse and fragrant. The ho&t 
was as genial and buo3'ant and jo^'ous as ever, and nothing could 
have l:)een lovelier or more engiiging than that picture of the 
"■Hutchinson Family" at their charaiiug home, on that memorable 
evening. Few of our countrymen who have appeared in public,, 
liave given more of pure pleasure to the })eople, or broken or dis- 
solved more of slavery's chains by the human voice, than has 
he ; and it is the consciousness of a life so spent that makes old 
age at once happy and interesting. 

. WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. 
William Lloyd Garrison, the second son of the great Reformer 
whose uame he bears, was born in Boston, Januaiy 21, l<So8, and 
was educated in the public schools of that city. The earlier years 
of his ))usiness life were spent as teller in a bank in Lynn, Mass., 
which he left to become cashier of a bank in Dorchester. Subse- 
quently he went into the wool business in Boston, and he is still 
engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was one of tlie victims of 
the terrible railroad disaster at Revere, Mass.. in 1<S71 and nar- 
rowly escai)3d with his life on that occasion. Since the death of 
his fathei', in 1879, he has spoken and written much on social and 
moral questions, in the intervals of his busy life, and is ever 
promi)t to bear his testimony in behalf of justice and righteous- 
ness. The woman suffrage movement, the temperance cause, the 
persecuted Chinese residents of our country, all find in him an 
ardent advocate and ready defender, and he is one of the ablest 
disciples of Henr}' George in the agitation in behalf of free trade 
and the single tax, as was abundantly attested by his addresses 
on these subjects at the Cooper Institute, in New York, in 1887, 
and at a dinner given in honor of Richard Cobden's memory, at 
Cleveland, Ohio, last June. He has written most felicitously, 
l)oth in pi'ose and verse, in tribute to some of his father's surviv- 
ing associates. His address on John G. Wiiittier, delivered before 
the Brooklyn, (N. Y.) Institute of Arts and Sciences, Dec. 17, 
1892, and the poem which he read at a reception given by the 
Whittier Club of Haverhill, in the old homestead, last October, 
were in his best vein and were i-emarkably fine productions, while 
his address at the Danvers Reunion, as printed in this book, is an 
admirable specimen of his terse, vigorous and finished style. As 
one of the veterans present remarked after hearing it, '• That in 
itself would have justified this occasion ;" and cei'tainly no better 
or more comi)act statement and vindication of the GarrisoniaiL 
position against a slaveholding LTnion has lieen written. To the 
few yet surviving who laltored in the great cause with the elder 



1)1 



-.■wrisDii. .'iiiil tn till who I'l'XH'iT his iiuMUi irv, it is ;i protVumd satis- 
wvclioii that thi; son lias iiihci-itc'd iiol iiiiMi'ly iiis naiiic, Iml his 
broad hiiuianitariaii siiirit and [»nr|iosi', and ihat he wears liis 
mantel so worthily. 

KKV. SAMTKL .AIAV. 



No one of th:' ol I ( inai'd of Lilierty is more nniversallv or 
i'esei'vi'div lo\ed and i'e\ered tlian Kcw Samnel Maw of l^eices- 
ler, JNluss. IL- was hoi'n in IJoston, A[)ril 11, l.SH), and is tiiere- 
foro now in the ei;j,lity-fonrtli year of his a^e. His fatlier, wiio 
(lied in 1870, agetl 1)4, was tlie excellent Sanuiel May, mer- 
chant of Boston, and senior deacon of the llollis Street Clmreli in 
that city during the long and determined battle whieli its then 
minister, Kev. John Tierpont, forniitlal)le fo(! of Shivery and 
Iiitemperunee, waged tigainst the rum tralllc of some of his 
wealthy and intiuential parishioners. His motlier was Mary 
Goddiird of Brookline, Mass., daughter of Joseph (ioddard. 
Tlie famous Abolitionist, Rev. Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, sou 
t;f Col. Joseph May of King's Chaijcl, was his cousin. 

The subject of this sketch was for four yeai's in the scliool of 
Dca. Samuel Greele, of Boston, for three at the Boston Public 
Latin School, and for one at the Round Hill School at Northamp- 
ton, whose principals were Jose[)li (1. Cogswell and George Ban- 
croft. He entered Harvai'd College as a Sophomore in 1826, and 
graduated in 1829. Having passed the next year in preparatory 
studies, chiefly at Bi'ooklyn, Conn., with his cousin, Rev. Samuel 
J. May, who was then settled in that place, he entered the 
Divinity fSchool at Canil)ridge in 1830, wlu're he had the lienefit 
t>f lectures by Andrews Norton, Dr. Henry ^Vare, Senior, Henry 
Waie, Jr., and John G. Palfrey, and where he graduated in 1833. 
He was settled in the ministry, Aug. 13, 1834, at Leicester, 
Mass., where he remained twelve years, being at the same time a 
niLMnber of the "■ Worcester Ministerial Association" with Dr. 
Aaron Bancroft, Dr. Josei)Ii Allen, and other i>minent clergymen 
of the county. 

Continued intercourse witli iiis cousin had more and more 
served to imbue him with Anti-Slavery sentiment, until, in the 
year 1833, he was influenced to take a stand oi)enly with the 
Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society by the reading of Mrs. Lydia 
ISLiria Child's book, " An Appeal in favor of that class of Ameri- 
pans called Africans." From the first he nniti-d with his minis- 
terial work an earnest interest in what was soon to l)e the great 
|)hilanthri)|)ic movem.'ut of the time. He helped to form a town 
Anti-Slaverv Societv and was an active meml>er and oflicer. In 



1U2 

1840 he uttended the nniuial meetiiio- of the Ainericjui Auti- 
Shiveiy Society, in New Y«Mk, at which took phice the vveH- 
remenibered secession of those wiio were opposed to woineK. 
having any active pait in such gatherinos. The strong and wise 
testimony which he bore from time to time against the colossal 
fein of the hind gave sucli offence to several of the members of his 
I'nitai-ian Society that they witlidrew fi-oni the chiii-ch. Another, 
who was prominent and who fully shared their [)r() slavery feelings 
remained behind, and was so strenuous in his opjjosition to any 
treatment or mention of the subject whatevei', in the puli)it. that 
IMr. May, unwilling to divide the Society, and being unaltle in 
lake any other cours' as to Slavery itself, resigned his position at 
the end of the eleventh year of his pastorate. Yet the result of 
sevei'al meetings was a luianimous request that the resignation 
should be withdrawn, his violent opponent joining in the vote, 
i\Ir. May accordingly yielded to the wishes of his people for the 
time, but as the hostility of the person referred to soon became 
more pronounced than ever, he (inally, a year later. surren(lere<i 
his charge. 

Not long afterward he was appointed as the (xeneral Agent 
of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He acce|)ted the 
position, and entered upon its work in June, 1S47, after having 
finished an engagement of about six months with the BrooklyiE 
(Conn.) Unitarian church, of which his cousin had some time 
before been the minister. His office was at 21 Cornhill, Boston, 
in conjunction with that of Tlie Liberator^ and his principal 
work was to keei) the Society's lecturing agents as busy as their 
strength w^ould allow, to correspond with friendly people in 
jMassachnsetts and gradually in other parts of New P^ugland. t« 
raise funds, establish county organizations, attend conventions, 
and to see to the i)ublication and distribution of tracts. Other 
important Anti-Slavery bodies and gatherings were also includeJ 
in his official care, and after the passage of the Fugitive Slave 
Law, his labors were htill more extended so as to protect as much 
as possible the many imperilled colored peoi»le, in and about 
Boston, who had escaped from their thraldom. Mr. May wa« 
General Agent for 18 years, and only those who know his con- 
scientious and consecrated fidelity to all duty can have any just 
conception of the vast service which he lendered to the cause 
dining that most momentous period of the Anti-Slavery struggle. 
No work was more needed, and no man was lietter qualified for it 
than was he. He brought to it eminent ability and the highest 
character, the best intellectual, moral and religious training, and 
a supreme love to man ami love to God. His sphere of toil was 
a wide one and his labors were many and arduous. They neces- 



103 

suiily rcciuired that lie slioiild be ahseiit from home f<n' much of 
the time, his wife meanwhile haviiiLi; the i-esponsible care of the 
family almost entirely. Their only serious interruption was when 
his imi)aire(l health ol)liged him to ivturn to Leicester and spend 
a year and a half in the recovery of his strenoth. As soon as he 
was well enough, he was again in the held, nor ceased from its 
claims upon him until the Anti-Slavery Amendments of the 
United .States Constitution became law and the bondmen were all 
free. It is enough to say that throughout his i)rotracted term of 
service he enjoyed the most tnd)ounded eontidence and warmest 
support and friendship of such men and women as Francis .lack- 
son and Edmund (.^uiucy, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Pillsbury, Mis. 
Chapman and Mrs. Stone, Mr. and Mrs. Stephen S. Fostei- and 
Charles Burleigii, Wendell Phillips, Charles L. Kemond, aii<l the 
rest. 

In 1843, Mr. Ma}', in consequence of a severe catarrhal 
affection, lost his voice entirel}', but I'egained it by a sea voyage 
to England, extending his journey to the continent. Whih' in 
the mother country he embraced an opportunity that was prescnte<J 
to him to bring before the Unitarians there the sidiject of Slavery 
in the United States, and while in Geneva, Switzerland, he wrote,, 
in reply to a request from some English Unitarians for informa- 
tion about the American Unitarian ministers and peo|)le, a lettei" 
which afterward became more widely known, and which, as he 
was accused of something like treachery, he read on his return, 
home, word for word, before the Berry St. Conference in IJostoii. 
Some of the brethren who were most unfriendly to the Anti- 
Slavery cause were (piite embittered against him on account of 
his courageous and truthful testimony, and Dr. (Jannett. so^ 
greatly beloved and honored, told him that lie was "■ the most 
dangerous man in Massachusetts I" Today, there is no man of 
his communion who is more venei'ated by all who know iiim, 
inside of it or outside of it. thiin Rev. Sanuiel M:iy. of L-'iccster. 
Yet /<e lias not changed ; l)Ut the people, L'nit;iri:ins and others,. 
have. 

HON. I\r. M. FISHER. 

Milton M. Fisher, son of Willis and Caroline (Fairbanks) 
Fisher, was born in Fianklin, Mass.. Jan. 30, 1811, and through 
his father and mother is a descendant of several English families 
who immigrated to this country in l(!31-37. The earliest of these 
were that of Thomas Fisher, of Winston, England, who settle(l in 
Cambridge in ir)34 and icmoved with his family to Dedham in 
1G37, on the arrival of Anthony and eleven others of the same 
family name from Syleham ; and that of Jonathan Fairbanks, of' 



104 

Tatterford. who removed to Dedhain from Boston in lG3G-o7. 
With tliem came, also, Michael Metcalf, the first school teacher 
in Dedham. Nearly all the families in New England and the 
Western States that bear these several names trace their ancestral 
lines back to some of the emigrants above mentioned. Fisher 
Ames, the eloqnent orator of the Revolntion, Dr. John Fisher, L. 
L. D., of Beverly, founder of a professorship in Harvard College, 
and George P. Fisher, the eminent Professor of Ecclesiastical 
History in Yale College, may all be referred to the Fishers who 
first settled in Dedham, while r.mong those who have l)orne the 
name in P^nglish history there have been such distinguished men 
as Gen. Osborne Le Pecheur (Fisher), one of the Norman barons 
of William the Conqueror, 1UG6, John Fisher, a martyr to his 
faith who was beheaded by Henry Vlll, 1535, and the Arch- 
bishop of Salisbury, 1613. 

Milton M. Fisher completed his education at Amherst College 
in 1833, and received the honorary degree of A. J\I. in 1S65. In 
1836, he married Eleanor Metcalf, daughter of Hon. Luther 
ISIetcalf, of Medvvay. Of their nine children four survive: Dr. 
Thomas W. Fisher, superintendent of the iJoston Lunatic Hos- 
pitals, Frederick L. Fisher, Treasurer of the Med way Savings 
Bank, and two daughters, one of whom married and settled in 
Harriman, Tennessee, and the other is resident at the family 
liomestead in JNIedway. 

At the early age of seventeen he vvas a teacher of public 
schools for eight terms, and for two terms a teacher in a classi- 
cal school for boys. On leaving college and on recovering from 
ill health, he was a trader in Franklin and Westborough for live 
years. Li 1840, removing to Medway, he established the straw 
works, now owned by Messrs. Hirsch and Parks, and retired from 
the business in 1863. Since then he has devoted himself chiefly 
to insurance, banking, and real estate. During his long business 
life of sixty years, for fifty-three of which he has been a resident 
of Medway, he has been honored with various judiciary trusts 
iind municipal and other public offices, and has taken a leading 
part in numerous enterprises that concerned the prosperity or 
welfare of his fellow citizens. In 1855, he was one of the com- 
missioners appointed to divide Ihe town of Danvers (the portion 
that was set off, first taking the name of /South Uanvers, and 
afterward that of Peahody), and subsequently he was made a 
special commissioner for other state purposes. For 185!) and 
1860, he was elected state senator from the West Norfolk Dis- 
trict, and was prominent and influential in introducing and carry- 
ing through the Legislature several useful and important meas- 
ures. From 1863 to 1872, a period of nine years, he was a 



10.3 

member of the Board of Count}' Commissioners, and for throe 
years was its chairman, while for many years he lias also l)een 
<.>iHeially connected with several religions and liene\()lent oi'uau- 
izations. 

In the valnal)le [japer which this excellent and ureatlv 
esteemed octogenarian presented at the Danvers Commemorative 
ISIeeting, he brietly outlined a part of his extended anti-shvvery 
experience or service ; but it remains to add, that, during his 
long and busy life he has delivered many addresses, not only on 
the subject of Slavery, Init also in the interest of the Temperance 
cause, and upon political and other toi)ies, at the same time 
conti'ibuting numerous articles for the public press. It is worthv 
of special note, that he is, so far as is known, the last survivor of 
the First Public Meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 
held in New York, JNIay 5th and Gth, 1884, except the venerable 
Ivobert Purvis, the highly-cultured and noted colored gentleman, 
whom Philadelphia claims as one of its worthiest and most 
honored citizens. And it should also be said, that Mr. Fisher, 
Kev. Sanuiel JNlay, and Theodore I). Weld, of Hyde Park, who is 
now in his 'JOth year and is of unsurpassed merit as a veteran 
abolitionist, are the three, still living, of the five persons in 
Massachusetts whom John G. Whittier, in 1891, called the " Old 
Anti-lSlaverii G-uard.'' Mr. Fisher is in his 83d year, and yet in 
various ways, however moderately, employs hiinself ten hours a 
day in useful work and care. 

GEORGE BRADFOPvD BARTLETT. 

Ml'. Bartlett, who recited at the commemorative meeting some 
vigorous and appropriate lines which he had written for tlu^ 
occasion, was born in Concord, Mass., July 7, 1833, being the 
sou of Dr. Josiah Baitlett, a practicing physician of that town 
for fifty-five 3'ears, and the grandson of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, of 
Charlestown, whose practice there extended through nearly the 
same length of time. Of the former it is related, that he pei- 
formed the first act of surgery in the American Revolution, on 
the 19th of Ai)ril, 1775. The familiar tratlitions res[)ecting tlu- 
latter mark him as one of the most prominent and honored imMi 
of Concord in his time, and as a conspicuous re|)resentative of 
that noble type of widely known and grt'atly b;'loved [)hysicians 
wliich is almost peculiar to New England life and history. F. B. 
Sanborn, in his exceedingly interesting l)iograi)hy of Thoreau. 
quotes as applicable to him the liiu' from Dr. Johnson, '■ Of 
every friendless name the J'riend,'' and atlds : *■'■ lie said more 
than once that for fifty years no severity of weather had kei)t him 



106 

from visiting- his distant patients, — .sometimes miles away, — ex- 
cept once, and then the snow was piled so high that his sleigh 
upset every two rods." 

George, the sou, who has inherited abundantly the kindly 
and helpful spirit of the father, was nearly ready for college 
when he was but 15 years of age, but was obliged by failing eye- 
sight to abandon study for business, which he left after earning 
money enough for support in an unostentatious style of life, while 
engaged in more congenial, though it might l)e less lucrative em- 
ployments. His tirst literary work was for " Our Young Folks," 
the best juvenile magazine of the time, and he has also contribu- 
ted largely to the ''Wide Awake," for which he is now writing a 
serial; for the "St. Nicholas," Harper's Young People," and 
the " Youth's Companiou." Some of his articles for these maga- 
zines have been collected and published in book form by Harper 
Brothers, New York. 

His verses may be found in Emerson's " Parnassus," Long- 
fellow's "Poems of Places," and in many other publications. 
He is the author of several pamphlets on Anuisements in London , 
and New York, and his book about Concord has passed through 
many editious and has found a ready sale in Euroi)e as well as in 
America. Indeed uo one knows more about the beautiful old 
historic and literary town, and the authors who have so much 
added to its fame, than INIr. Bartlett, and visitors find his Guide 
a necessary and most entertaining comitanion as they repair to 
the many interesting ol>jects and places they want to see. He is 
H favorite lecturer withal, and has instructed and charmed many 
an audience, far and near, with his talks about the poets, essay- 
ists and transcendeutalists of Concord and their haunts, and on 
legendary lore. One of the most popular of these is his " Foot- 
steps of Thorean," which he prepared only as, after his previous 
knowledge of that remarkable " poet-naturalist," he had tracked 
him in all his adventurous excursions uj) the rivers and over 
the mountains, and through the fields and forests. Mr. Bartlett is a 
zealous antiquarian, and is a life-member of the Pocumtuck An- 
tiquarian Society of Deertield, Mass., as well as a charter member 
of the Antiquarian Society of Concord. 

HON. PARKER PILLSBURY. 

Essex County has had the honor of giving birth to at least 
three of the most celebrated of the old abolitionists : — William 
Lloyd Garrison, born in Newburyport; John G. Whittier, born 
in Ha\'erhill ; and Parker Pillsbury, a native of Hamilton. Gar- 
rison and Whittier have gone to their exceeding great reward^ 
but Mr. Pillsbury still remains, to the joy of his multitudinous 



107 

friiiiuls and admirers, as lu'iiilit and sccinin;jly almost as vii>orous 
at the a^e «»f SL as in tlic yi'ars when. a> Fri'di-rick Douglass 
writes, he was the oni- terror of the [)ro-shiveiy ministers and 
chuix'hes. (Jilted and distinguished sons of •• (Jld Essex," be- 
sides, there have been, who rendered noble service for the right 
in the great coutlict; .lames N. IJuffum, of Lynn, who was never 
weary in well-doing, and who through the long years gave freely 
and unfalteringly his voiee and pen and lieait to the w(jrk ; that 
colored orator of tiery elociuence. C'hailes Lennox Hemond, of 
Salem, whose maidiocxl was itself a sutlieient argument against 
the system that enthralled his race; Hon. Leverett Sultonstall 
and Hon. Stephen C. Thillips, also of Salem, and Hon. Daniel P. 
King, of Danvers, all of lilessed memory, who, in Congress and 
out of it, strenuously lesisted the alaiming encroachments of the 
Slave Power, and in their love of freedom bravely withstood the 
[lowei-fnl political party with wdiich they were connected, as it 
connived at the iniquitous schemes of the southern propagandists 
and their northern allies; that brilliant and accom[)iished states- 
man, Hon. Robert Pantoul, Jr., of Beverly, whose career was so 
suddenly and sadly cut off by death just as he had entered upon 
his more conspicuous lai)()rs in tlu' National Legislature, but not 
until he had brought his acute legal learning and masterly ability 
to exi)Ose the unconstitutionality of the Fugitive Slave Law, and 
given other gladdening promise of additional blows which, had his 
life been spared, he would doul)tless have struck for the cause of 
Liberty which at heart he had ever loved ; these too, and other 
well-kmnvn reformers and philanthropists with them, attest that 
Essex County had no mean share in the general work of emanci- 
pation. But of all who have been mentioned, no one was more 
courageous and faithful in the tight than Parker Pillsbury, no one 
had a tougher mental or moral fibre, a more unselfish zeal for 
humanity ,"a more determined and adamantine puri)ose to break 
every yoke, or a loftier standard of truth and righteousness. ^ Per- 
haps there was no other of them all, whom any apologist or 
defender of slavery, whether it were priest or politician, would 
have so dreaded to encounter in open public del»ate on the one 
burning (piestion of the time. 

He was born in Hamilton, Mass., Sept. 22, \H()9. His 
parents were Oliver and Anna Pillsbury. Oliver was a native of 
Newburyport and the old house in which he tiist saw tlu' light and 
which has seen seven successive generations of the Pillsbury fam- 
ily, still stands upon a lot on High street and near the old Tim- 
othy Dexter mansion, where a yet earlier generation of the line 
lived in a log cabin. In his early manhood he moved to Hamilton 
and there carried on business as a blacksmith and chaise-maker. 



108 

At the Dinnnier Academy, in l>_vH;4cl, he h;ul liibt met his future 
wife, Anna ISmith, danghter of Philemon and Maty (l\)hind) 
iSmith, of Essex (Chebaceo), Mass. In coming to Hamilton, lie 
found himself nearer his fair school frieud and the acijuaintance 
easily became more intimate, and ere long ri[)ened into mai'i'iage. 
The first few years of their wedded life were passed under the 
ministry of the great and famous Dr. Manasseh Cutler. Of their 
eleven children three were liorn to them there, of wiiom Parl^er 
was the first. When he was lint four years old, his father and 
CaiJtain IMoses Foster of Wenham, fwlio had mai'ried Abigail 
Smith, Anna's sister}, moved with their families to Henniker, 
N. H., where they bought a large farm and wliere they lixed their 
home about four miles from the village :uid the church, on a high 
peak of rocks, whence in clear weather they could look afar and 
see distinctly the White Mountains 120 uiiles away. The l)rief 
winter schools, so poor at best, which he attended as he came to 
be a lad, or youth, afforded him but the scantiest means of edu- 
cation. Full early in life he knew what it was to work, there on 
those wild, sterile hills, in removing stuuii)s, building fences and 
stone walls, and helping to eke out a supp(jrt for the family from 
the unwilling soil. Yet it was there, amidst the hard toils, the 
free winds, and the glorious views of that New Hampshire home, 
that he acquired the strong, i)hYsical frame and the stronger love 
of liberty, which one day he was to carry with him into his great 
service of enslaved and outraged millions. The late James Per- 
kins, of Magnolia, who was his cousin, once said to us that he 
was a remarkably blight, robust, and promising boy. He was 
very fond of reading, and when he was al)ont twenty he became 
intensely interested in the speeches of Clarkson and Wilberforce 
in behalf of West India emancipation. About this time he went 
to Lynn, Mass., where he was emi)loyed for three years as the 
driver of a baggage and expi'ess wagon to Boston, before the age 
of railroads, little dreaming that ere long he himself, with others 
like him, was to make the old anti-slavery town and its neighbor- 
hood resound with his thunders against the wrongs and woes of 
his oppressed countrymen. 

In 1832, he returned to Henniker, where he again engaged in 
farming and also l)ecame active in the church, and at length de- 
cided to prepare himself for the ministry. At the age of 27, he 
entered a Theological School at Gilmanton, N. H., and graduated 
there at the end of three yeai's, after which he still |)ursued his 
studies for a long winter term at the Audover [Seminary. For 
about a year he pieached in his adopted state, chietly at London, 
a town adjoining Concord, and now and then, for a Sunday or 
two at a time, in other places. His sermons were not of the 



ooniiiKiii-lihict' tvpi', liiit wcic >liMki:!i!; ami full of puwci-. Liiving 
evitlvncc that lieic was a man who was (li-stim-d to make li'.s mark 
and (U) Ills own thinkinu. lie was slill of the most luuiniv-lioiiod 
<»rtlio(lo\v. and Mr. I'cikins once told ns liow \\v heard him 
])n'acli a \'<'ry able and \ i<i(.)ii;us dirseoiirsc which was followed w;'Ji 
tile hvmn, 

' • '1 here is a fi)mitain lillcd with hluod :'" 

liiit ills l)old and independent idtei'ances in rei^urd to variou> con- 
troverted (juestions of the duy led some oi' his Inethn'n to give 
him the cold shoulder, and their fear or di^^tiiist of him was sooa 
to Itecome UKjre marked and manifest. Like so many of the- 
earnest and i)roHiisii)g spirits throughout the North, he came 
under the strong and resistless infiueiice of William l.loytl (Jar- 
rison, and, al)ai)doning the pul[)it in liSMi). he returned negative 
answers to ti\e invitations which then lay u^ion his tal)le from ns 
many connti'}' or village clun-ehes to become their minister, and 
threw himself, body, mind, heart and sold, into the light against 
slavery. That was 'o be the one sui)reme work of his life. It 
cost him dear, (ireat were the soi'row of his fiieiids and kindred, 
find the sncrilice of personal popidarity and reputation. The Avay 
before him was one of struggle and liardslii[), contem|)t and per- 
secution. The crown was far in the distance, unseen to mortal 
view. But never did soldier of the cross take up his burden and 
bear it on, against foes and discouragements, more l)ravely and 
lesolutely than he, through all the |)rotracted warfare. 

The story is too long for any extended record of it here. 
As the General Agent of the New Hampshire Anti-Slavery 
Society, or in his more individual, independent cai)acity, he 
traversed the Nortliern States for a quarter of a century, or until 
Slavery was abolished, preaching (leliverance for the ca|)tives 
wherever men would come to iiear, in church, hall, school-house, 
private dwelling, or in the open air, and denouncing with terrible 
severity the guilty secular and ecclesiastical powers for their 
complicity with the " sum of all vilhunies." He was everywhere 
recognized as one of the very ablest and most formidable repre- 
sentatives of the Garrisonian platform, lie had no fear of maa 
or devil. He had the real lighting quality. He never minced 
mattei-s. He charged u|)on the enemy with the full force of his 
powerful nature, and full often his enraged opponents acknowl- 
edged their discomtiiure by hurling at him stones and brick-bats 
and bad names in return for his trenchant logic, withering wit 
and sarcasm, and unanswerable facts. But what were all such 
missiles to men like Barker Billsbury? They were only cheering 
symptfjiiis that evil si)ii-its were bidng exoi'cised, and that the 



110 

process was liL-iiltlifiil, however hard, even as a famous revivalist 
was aeeiistouied to say that the l)est way to convert some men to 
Christian faith and life was first to make them mad. Not seldom, 
ill moral as in physical cures, the severest surgical operations are 
necessary and safest. 

Mr. Pillshury's pen, as well as his voice, has been given 
unstintedly to the cause. Sucli prudnetions as his '• Folorn Hope 
of Slavery" (•• A brief exhibition of the American church «.s' ?7 /.-<■, 
in reference to the felave System of the United States"), 1.S47, 
but especially his hiter and laiger book, ''The Acts of the Anti- 
Slavery Apostles," I880, not to speak of various pami)lilets 
beside, nn(l numberless article.-, published in the JItrahl of Free- 
dom and oilier |)ai)Oi's. reveal the spirit ;ind quality of the man 
and cannot be passed by, by any one who would undjistand the 
work of the nlx^lition reformers. 

His ^^t^ong-minded and intelligent father died in 1S.")7. and 
his remarkal)ly interesting and lovely mother in 1871), at the age 
of 1)4. However they might not have shared his liohler anti- 
slavery <)|- freer doctrinal views, the}' never lost theii' f;nth in their 
first-born, but rested in his profoundly religious nature and lived 
to be glad for all that he had done to set at libeity them that 
were l)ruised. The aged mother was borne to her burial, at her 
own request, by her four surviving sons, J'arker, J. Webstei-, 
Gilbert and Oliver, all of whom rose to honorable distinction. 
For the last quaiter of a centuiy our veteran friend has lived in 
Concord, N. H., where he mai'ried, Jan. 1, 1840, Sarah Hall 
Sargent. Their only child is Helen Bnffura, who married, Sept. 
22, 1889, Mr. Parsons Brainerd, now mayor of that city. Wife 
and daughter aie still with him, the solace of his more quiet old 
age, even as they were the sharers of his stormier past, and any 
one who should see him there, beloved by all who know him, 
would hardly lealize that he was once the object of wide-spread 
fear and hatred. His work, however, is not 3'et done. The same 
spirit that animated him to battle for the slave, continues him in 
the advocacy of many another noble reform which he espoused 
long, long yeais ago, as each ap|)ealed to his understanding and 
heart, whether Tem|)erance, Peace, or Woman Suffrage. In later 
years, his Temperance prir.ciples cover entire abstinence from all 
narcotics, and from the flesh of all creatures that walk the earth, 
flj" the air, or swim or dwell in the waters. And he professes to 
live and hopes to die, true to the Doctrine of N'on- liesistance , 
as taught by Garrison, Adin Ballon, Lucretia Mott, and Lydia 
Maria Child, and other brave men and women of their day. In 
1854, Mr. Pillsl)ury went abroad and was gone about two years, 
and there, as at home, he preached and practised his cherished 



Ill 

viows in relation to :iU tlu-se uiatltTs. AVIioevtM' heard lii:n at 
Danvers on the 2!5tii of April must have felt that his lust woril 
has not been spoken and that his mission is iiy no means endod. 
His still more I'eeent eloquent addresses at the celebration, on tiie 
21st of June last, of the First Centennial of the Incorporation of 
his native town, and at the unveiling of the statue of William 
Lloyd Garrison at Newburyi)ort, are fresh illustrations of his 
wonted activity and unwaniu!:^ power. The twentieth centui-y 
waits for hiin and will need him. 

KEV. GEUKGP: W. FOliTKlJ. D. 1). 

Rev. Dr. Porter, a descendant of J(^hn Poller, one of the 
original and most prominent and influential settlers of " Salem 
Milage" (Danvers). Mass., was born in Beverly, of the same 
neighborhood, June 21, 1817. His grandfather, Benjamin Porter, 
married the widow of Bartholomew Brown, .Sarah (Ilea) Brown. 
Of their seven children, the eldest vvas General Moses Porter, a 
great soldier of the Revolutionary war, of the war of 1812, and 
of the Frontiers, wliile the youngest was lOaniel, the father of 
George. Daniel married Ruth Meacum of Topstield, a town 
adjacent to Danvers like Beverly. Both were persons of large 
stature and robust health, and lived to be more than fourscore 
years old. They had ten children and George was the youngest 
of these. When he was in his third year, the family removed to 
(Janaan, N. H., where both the parents died. The son's primary 
and pre[)aratory education was first in the common schools and 
subsequently at Orange County Grammar School, Randolph, \t., 
at Plymouth Academy, Plymouth, N. H., and at Philli|)s Acad- 
emy, Andover, Mass. ; but there were interval* when he pursued 
classical and scientific studies under private tutors. For three 
years he taught school, in the English Department of Chaunc}' 
Hall, Boston. His junior year in theological study was also 
passed at Andover. At its close, already a candidate for Holy 
Orders in the Pi'otestant Episcopal Church, he went abroad to 
pursue his preparations for the ministry at several German 
Universities. On his return, after an absence of two years, he 
was admitted to Orders and afterward organized the parish of St. 
Mary's Church, Dorchester, of which he was the Rector for sev- 
eral years. This was his first parish ; and since his retirement 
from the pastoral relation, his professional life has been passed 
in New England and in the state of New York, with the excep- 
tion of the |)eri(Hl of his diaconate in I*hiladelphia, as assistant at 
St. Luke's Church. He received tiie honorary degree of S. T. D. 
from Iloltart Free College, Geneva, N. Y. 



112 

In 184!), he mai'iied a niece of Govei'nor William Eustis of 
]\r:issuchusetts. Elizabeth Eustis Langdon. of Portsmouth, N. H., 
with w JKjm and an only daughter he now resides in Lexington, 
Mass., occupied with such clerical and otlicr duty as claims his 
attention and service, and glad to s|)end his remaining years 
amidst the pleasant associations and his n)any cherished friends 
in that beautiful old historic town. Eor the usual term of yeai's, 
he was latel}' the ]*resident of the Lexington Historical Society; 
and as a more recent mark of the great esteem in which he is 
everywhere held, wdien it chanced that a regular meeting of the 
Convocation of the Episcopal Churches of Eastern Massachusetts 
for 1892 fell on his seventy-fifth Iiirthday, his assembled brethren 
and friends passed congratulatory resolutions, expressive of their 
affectionate regard and high veneration for him, and of their 
earnest ap[)reciation of his long and -faithful ministry of the 
Word. An excellent portrait of this distinguished son of " old 
Essex." as well as another of Gen. Moses Porter, his uncle, 
painted by INliss Elizabeth A. Clapp, of South Boston, has recently 
heen [ilaced among the pictures of the Danvers Historical Society. 

MPS. LUCY STONE. 

A very interesting sketch of Mrs. Stone appeared in 7Vie 
Woiuan'-s Journal, of April lo, 1893, and from it we gather the 
particulars for the Ijrief story of her life presented here. Born 
at West Brooklield, Mass., August 13, 1818, she was the daugh- 
ter of Francis and Hannah (Matthews) Stone, and was the eighth 
of their nine children. She is of noble ancestry, her greatgrand- 
father having fough.t in the French and Indian War, her grand- 
father having been an officer in the war of the Revolution and 
afterward a Captain in Shay's Pebellion, and her father a re- 
spected and prosperous farmer. She grew up a bright and 
vigorous chikl, truthful, fearless, and very helpful to her parents 
about the house and in the hard life which they, in common with 
most New England farmers, knew only too well. Her observing 
and thoughtful mind early saw around her the very unjust and 
painful lot of woman and already began to recognize the need of 
reform. Athirst for huowledge, she wanted to go to college, 
l)icked berries and chestnuts for money to buy books with, and, 
alternately with earnest study, successfully taught district schools 
at very low wages until she was twenty-five, when she had earned 
enough to take her to Oberlin College and enable her to begin her 
course at that institution, the only one of the kind in the country 
which then admitted women. There she met her expenses by 
teaching in the preparatory department, and by doing housework, 



113 

at tlii'ee ceuts an hour, in the Ladies' Boarding Hall, durin;j; most 
of the time cooking her food in her own room and hoarding her- 
self at a cost of less than fifty cents a week, so scant was her [lay 
and so poor were the circumstances. 

Oberlin was an Anti-Slavery stronghold and harhored and 
assisted many fugitive slaves. A school was started to teach 
them to read, and it is not without signilicance, as a testimony 
to her sympathy for the unfortunates as well as her excellent 
standmg in the college, that she was asked to take charge of it. 
The colored men at tirst demurred at being taught by a. woman, 
but were tiuall}' induced to yield the point and in due time became 
so much attached to their instructress th:.t when one day the 
Ladies' Boarding Hall took fire a whole string of them appeared 
at the scene, eager, most of all, to save /«er effects. Such, indeed, 
was the favor with which she was regarded by the colored jieople 
of Oberlin, that, while yet a student at the college, she was 
invited by them to be one of the speakers at a celebration tiiey 
held in honor of the West India Emancipation. It was her lirst 
public speech, made nearly a half century ago. She was sum- 
moned before the Ladies' Board the next da}', when she was 
admonished that it was ''■ unwomanly and nnscriptural" for a 
lady thus to appear among men on a platform and speak at a 
public meeting as she had done, Mrs. Mahan, the President's 
wife, asking her if she had not felt " embarassed and frightened" 
in her [)erformance in the very midst of such companions ; but 
the brave little woman quietly gave her the assurance that she 
*•' was not afraid of them at all," and, though the act was emi- 
nently right and proi)er, the interview seems to have virtually 
closed with a hint that she must not do it again ! At the end of 
her course, she was appointed to prepare an essay for the com- 
mencement exercises, but when it was niade a condition that it 
must 1>e read by one of the professors, since it would l)e unbe- 
coming a woman to do it, she declined to present it at all, and 
awaited another and better opportunity at Oberlin, that was sure 
to come at length. For nearly forty years afterwards, when she 
had long been famous as an advocate, before the American 
people, of the rights of her own sex and of freedom for the slave, 
she was enthusiastically invited and welcomed back to the college 
to be one of the speakers at its Semi-Centennial Celebration. 

She graduated in 1847, and in the same year gave her first 
woman's rights lecture in her brother's church, at Grafton, Mass., 
and afterward lectured regularly for the Auti-Slavery Society, 
not forgetting, in her devotion to the oppressed colored race at 
the South, that other great cause which she so early esi)Oused, of 
which she has been so shining a representative and so noble a 



lU 

leader, and which she is living to see marching surely on to vic- 
tory. Her labors for the latter as well as for the former met 
with bitter opposition everywhere. For a long time she wrought, 
as it were, alone. She herself put up the posters for her meet- 
ings, which hooting bauds of young roughs were only too ready 
to tear down. All sorts of rude devices were resorted to in order 
to break up the meetings tiiemselves. On one occasion a hose 
was thrust through a window behind the platform and she was 
suddenly deluged with cold water. •' She put on a shawl and 
continued her lecture." Her mission took her through many 
l)arts of the country, where a woman's voice in public had never 
been heard before, but where, with the strong prejudice that 
existed against such innovations of established cuctom or rule, 
there was at the same time a curiosity to see and hear her that 
often lirought crowds at her call. She had a wonderful way of 
taming mischievous and violent spirits, by her exceptionally sweet 
and nuisical voice, her wise and gracious words, and her pleasant 
and captivating manner. JJut the tumult was stilled and the tur- 
ludeuce was shamed into silence, only that her message, in all its 
plainness and power, might find its surer way into the mind and 
heart. Many reformers, under such provocations and in such 
excitements, often lose their teni[)er and self-control, or are be- 
trayed into rashness of speech or folly of conduct, but Lucy Stone, 
whatever the occasion, invariably maintained her simple dignit}^ 
and Christian womanhood, and ruled the hour because she .s;^>oXe 
the truth in, love. In all this service, she practiced an economy 
and self-denial which attested her supreme devotion to her work, 
but which the world knew little about. '* When she stayed in 
Boston," for instance, "' she used to put up at a lodging-house in 
Hanover street, where they gave her meals for twelve and a half 
cents, and lody,ing for six and a quarter cents, ou condition of 
her sleepino- in the garret with the daughters of the house, three 
in a bed." 

"Then to side with Truth is noble 

When we sliare her wretched cnist. 
Ere her cause brini;; fame anil profit, 

Aud 'tis prosperous to be just." 

In 185"), Miss Stone was married, at the home of her parents in 
West Brookfield, to Henry IJ. Black well, a young hardware mej- 
chant of Cincinnati, so long and so well known for his Anti- 
Slavery zeal and laliors and for a like service to the Woman's 
Rights movement. The ceremony was i)erformed by Rev. (now 
CoT) Thomas Wentworth Iligginson, who was then a settled 
minister in Worcester. '' At the time of their marriage, they 
issued a joint i»rotest against the inequalities of the law which 



115 

g:ive the liiisl)aiid the control of his wife's i)r()perty, jxM'son and 
ehihh'en. This protest, which was widely pu!)lished in tiie i)apeis. 
jiave rise to mucli discnssion, and hel|)ed to get the laws amended." 
Moreover, '' she decided, with her Inishand's ftdl approval, to 
keep her own name, and she has continned to be called hy it 
din-ing nearly forty years of happy and affectionate mairi('<l life." 
Togethei- they have labored in many states of the Union, and by 
their lectnres, their addresses to the pi'ople and Legi.'shitnrc.s. anil 
their nnnierous pnl)lislied articles, they have done niiicli to im- 
prove the laws relating to woman, and still more to crcMtc a 
public opinion by which at last her wrongs siial! he redic^^st'd and 
her rights secured. In IHCfi. slie helped to orizaiiizc tin- .\inciicaii 
E(pial Ivights Association, for the benelit of ncgiocs .-ind wonifn 
both; and in 18(59 the American Woman Snttingc A^sociat i..n. 
serving as chairman of the executive committee of cicli ot \]\x->r 
bodies. Jn this capacity she served the latter for tlir .-,|..i(\- ..l 
twenty years, desiring '• not tlie post of prDminciicc, l.iit tlic p(»t 
of work." Jn 1(S72, slu' and her husband l)ecami' tln' I''.(lit )r.> ct 
the '• Woman's Journal." for the establishmeni <f w hirli shf 
raised most of the need'd money in 1870; and they liavc had 
charge of the paper from then till now, ))oth of thrm gi\ ing to it. 
with the aid of accomplished contril)utors, their .signal al.ilitv. 
rare exi)erience, and eainest toil. 

iMrs. Stone recently completed her seventy-tifth year, i-eceiv- 
ing the heartfelt congratulations of a host of her grateful and 
loving friends. One who sees and heais her finds it ditiicult to 
believe that she has lived so long. It is still Spring with her 
rather than Autumn, excei)t for her full store of garnered wealth 
of wisdom and goodness, and for the yet more abundant and 
ever-greatening harvest of her .sowing where '" the field is the 
world." Her chaiacter and lite present one of the brightest and 
most beautiful pictures in our American history, and there is 
scarcely one that is moie fraugiit with invaluable lessons for 
young and old alike. 

MRS. AHBY MOKTON DIAZ. 

Mrs. Diaz, so widely and favorably known for her earnest 
interest and well directed labors in many a philantliro|)ic work, 
was born in Plymouth, Mass., and was of the prominent and 
honored family of the Mortons of that place, among whom Abo- 
litionism early found some of its strongest and most ardent sup- 
porters. She is a direct descendant of one of th(! P*ilgrim 
Fathers, George Morton (bi-other of Nathaniel Morton, tlu; sec- 
retary of the Plymouth Colony and author of '* New England's 
Memorial"), and daughter of Ichabod Morton, one of the truest 



116 

of Anti-Slavery workers, and a member, with liis famih', of tlic 
famous Brook Farm Community. Of tlii;? father, her gifted 
cousin, Edwin INIorton, son of Edwin Morton and author of a 
vohime of very line poems, has wi'itten these lieautiful lines, sug- 
gested by his uncle's own words, " We can have Heaven here, if 
we Init live rightly :" 

"Me dreamed tliat Heaven slionld come to Earth, 

And ceaseless toiled thcday to view. 
O'erbornc he sank before its birth — 

And lo ! to him the dream is true ! 
O weary heart! U weary hand I 

No more the anxious strife renew — 
A Powei' above the vision planned, 

And Heaven indeed has come to you ! 

Sweet May returns — with leaf and tiower 

The irarden of his love expands I 
Rewarding Autunni brings her dower, 

But gives the fruit to other hands ! 
So blest is he, and ever- blest. 

Who patient sows where others reaji ; 
And ever ripening fields shall best 

His ever-growing memory keep I" 

Ahby was the only daughter, and there weic live brothers. 
In very early life she came nndei' the influence, not only of the 
Plymouth Mortons and their kindred friends and associates in the 
okl town of the P^orefathers, but also of such men as William 
Lloyd Garrison and Horace ^[ann, and of the Hrook Farm Frater- 
nity, and it is easy to see how much these privileges and ministries 
had to do in shaping her character and giving bent to her life. 
She, too, was caught by the magic i)ower of the great Reformer, 
and in her pithy and suggestive address at the Commemorative 
Meeting, she tells of some of her first and later anti-slavery work 
and experience. In her ^outh she had been accustomed, in con- 
nection with household duties, to write prose and poetry by way 
of recreation, and her taste for literary composition, as well as 
her capacity for other kinds of useful service, was to stand her in 
good stead in the not distant future, when, not long after her 
marriage to Mr. Diaz, she was left with two little sons dependent 
upon her effoits for their support. She was quick to turn her 
mind and hand to whatever sort of honorable toil most readily 
presented itself, in a certain apt and healthy way that many might 
well imitate. Now it was teaching a juvenile singing-school, and 
then acting as a housekeeper or even as a cook at a summer 
resort ; now giving out work from factories to needle-women, and 
then making soap at home, and again writing stories. Such a 
s[)irit as that knows no defeat and is sure of recognition, success 



117 

nnd honor, :it last. Thii-ty years ago, Mrs. Diaz beo-an to write 
nuigaziiu' articles and ItooUs of domestic and [xililie interest. It 
has been said of her: "She is a I'liritan of the; Tnritans, 
Piynioiitii horn and I'lyniouth leared ; the I'nritaii Idood that tills 
her veins thr<>l)> for liberty, for virtue, for liiiih attainment in 
thinking- and doing ;" and hei' writings are s) stioiigly marked by 
these qualities and aic altogether so bi'iglit and iu'lpinl, tiuit we 
can hardly forbi-ar to give in this connection a list of her books, 
as i)nblished l>y I). Lothrop & Co., Hoston. Thev ai'e, ''The 
William Henry Letters," " ^Villiam Henry and liis Friends," 
" Lucy Maria," "• Clironicles of the 8tim|jcett Family," "The 
Cats' Arabian Nights." '-A Story liook for Children," "The 
Jimmyjohns," "The.Iolui Spicer Lectures," " I 'oily Cologne," 
'• Story Fr.'e Series," " Tlie Sc'li > >lm ist 'r's Trunk," " Damestic 
Problems," " Bybury to Beacon Street" ;ind "Only a Flock of 
Women." These are not very Puritanic titles, to be sure, and it 
is possible that sc^me of the old Puritans would scarcely have 
found the pages fully in harmony with their sterner and less 
sympathetic views an(l ideas, but what was best in Puritanism is 
largely here and without it Mrs. Diaz's books could not have been 
written. The}' abound in practical lessons and are ada[)ted to 
the life of tcda}'. 

The same may be said of her numerous "talks" or "lec- 
tures." One of the papers well says of them: "The Gospel of 
life, as promulgated by Mrs. Diaz, is inspiring tae most gratify- 
ing attention. It is simply the Christianity of Christ that Mrs. Diaz 
teaches, applying this higher enlightenment to education, econo- 
mies, and social ))rogress. No one can listen to even one of her 
' talks' without rising to more enlarged and elevated views of 
human life and destiny." The subjects which she treats are such 
as tiiese : "Life, or What it is to live," ••Waste of Human 
Forces and Their Wise Direction," " Caste, or Class Spirit in 
America," " The True Work of Humanity for Humanity," 
" Ethics of Nationalism," " lAIissionary Work Among the Upi)er 
Classes," "Christian Socialism," "Application of Christianity 
to Civilization," "Our Philanthropies, Charities and Reforms, 
considered in the light of Reason and of Religion." "The True 
Social Science," "Thought as Power," "Progressive Morality," 
"Individuality," "The Woman (Question," •'Competition," 
'•Intemperance," '•The .State's Undt'veloped (human) Resources," 
" Human Nature," " Religion not sonu^thing imposeil on Human- 
ity, I»nt a necessit}' of Humanity," " Educational Duty of the 
.State to its Future Citizens in icgard to its own interests," 
" C-haracter Work in Scliix^ls and :it Home," and "The Higher 
Life." 



118 

For twelve successive years Mrs. Dinz was elected Tresident 
of the Women's Ediieationnl and Ind'istrial Union of Bostf)n, 
which she had helped to estahlish, resigning the position in 1891, 
on her removal to Belmont where she now resides., though she 
still remains a Director of the institution and frequently visits its 
looms to aid its practical work. During her residence in Belmont, 
she has started a " Women's Cluli" there, for the study of history 
and literature, and of such subjects as the public education of 
school children, the punishment of criminals, the improvement of 
streets, general sanitation, economy in use of public funds, etc. 

Fi'om all such enumerations of her varied themes, publica- 
tions, and laI)ors, it will be seen what a vei-y busy life INIi-s. Diaz 
has lived and at how many [)oints she touches huuuin life and the 
world's great need. If she writes charming storit's for the young 
and gives useful talks to poor workiug-giils and timely sympathy 
and aid to the friendless and lowly, n"t the less is her rare talent 
or broad culture made to I'eacli those who are more highly 
educated or who are in more favored circumstances; and so it i.s 
that the light that blessed the Pilgrims still breaks forth anew, 
and the mission of the Puritan still goes on for all. 

REV. AAPvON PORTER. 

Rev. Aaron Porter was born in Danvers, Mass., Aug. 10th, 
1820. and like his kinsman, Rev. Dr. George W. Porter, a sketch 
of whom has already been given in these pages, is a linea! 
descendant of the first Amei'ican progenitor of the Essex County 
race of that name, John Porter, the largest landed proprietor of 
that part of the town which was formerly known as "Salem 
\'illage," and -said by the Colonial I'ecords to have been a man of 
"•good repute for piety and integ•rit3^" as well as "estate." 
Aaron's father was Samuel Hathorne Portei', better known as 
Ilathorne Porter, one of the noted abolitionists of Diinvers, wh<i 
was greatly re»pecteil for his intelligence . and high Christian 
character, and of whose virtues and Anti-Slaver}' principles and 
sympathies the son is a woithy inheritor. The latter received hi.- 
higher education at the State Normal School at Bridgewater. 
Mass., and at the Theological School at IMeadville, Peun.. of 
whose Alumni Association lie is a member. After graduating at 
the Normal School, he taught in the Grammar Schools of Bristol, 
R. I., for one year, and for live years in the Grammar ScIkjoI of 
Fairhaven, INI ass. 

lie was married to Martha Ellen Cassino, at Salem, Mass.. 
IMarch 31, 18.57, and since that time has been settled over various 
cluirches of ditt'erent denominations. Having been ordained to 



the iniiiiistiy at Soineiset, Mntis., in 18G0, aiul having been for some 
time the pastor of a chnich of tiie " Christian" sect, in that town, 
lie snbseqnently removed to Lewisbnrg, Penn., and was tlie 
l)astor of a eluircli of the same connection there. He was after- 
ward tlie minister of the Unitarian C'hnreh in Northnml>erhind, 
Penn., (originally nnder the charge of the celebrated Dr. Joseph 
Priestley), and then of Universalist Chnrches in Gibson, Penn., 
and Mankato, Minn., whither he and his family Avent in 18(!1>. 
In 1871, he entered npon a ministry-at-large, at JMonntain Lakt^ 
and on the neighboring prairies, in iNlinnesota, but later returned 
to the East and was settled, successively, over the Fiist Parish 
(Unitarian) at Mendou, Mass., the I'Mrst Congregational Church 
and South Congregational Society (Orthodox), in Grafton. Vt., 
and the Orthodox Congregational Society' in East Alstead, N. H., 
of which he is now the minister. 

His numerous settlements in widely separated parts of tiie 
country illustiate his missionary sjjirit, while the fact that his 
services ai)pear to have been ei[ually acceptable to the seveiul 
Christian communions in which he has labored from time to time, 
without claim to any essential change of his doctrinal views, has 
been due to the emphasis he has laid upon what is most central 
in the Gospel of the New Testament and the comparatively small 
importance which he has atta'/hed to matters of less moment. A 
sincere and implicit believer in Jesus Christ, he has made love to 
God and love to man the burden of his preaching. As his 
Dauvers address showed, he was familiarly ac(piaiuted with the 
early Anti-Slavery friends and work in that town and is justly 
proud of them. too. cherishing the old traditions and spirit of the 
"Seven Stars," yet holding to lioth the Church and the State. 



MR. (;E0KGE W. PUTNAM. 

I-'cw of the living old line Aliolitioiiists date Ihm k their nnti- 
slavei'v interest and woik to so early a period, or have l)een liieiids 
or ae(piaintanee.s of so many of the leaders of ditferenl eiiianci|Ki- 
tion schools or parties, as Mr. George W. Putnam, of Lynn. 
None have toiled in the field with greater lidelity or with a mort? 
self-sacriticing spirit. He, too, like otliers present at the meeting, 
has a rich storehouse of personal recollections of the old days, 
which were well woi'thy of record, however small a part of them 
may be noted here, in these l)rief, informal sketches. 

He was born Sept. 6, 1812, in Gloucester, Mass., whitiu-r 
his parents, Joseph and Mercy Giddings (Whipple) Putnam, 
moved from Dauvers, their native place. Subse(piently, in ]S21. 
the familv removed to Salem. The father carried on the shoe 



120 

business, aiul also invented the " stone drain pipes" which are now 
used in vast quantities throughout this country and Europe, 
receiving, like many such useful inventors, little else than ridi- 
cule and abuse for his service. His wife was a sister of Matthew 
Whipple, the father of the late brillittut and noted essayist, Edwin 
F. Whipple; and her mother, whose name was Giddings, was a 
connection of the great anti-slavery leader of the West, Joshua 
R. Giddings, of Ohio. Joseph Putnam's father was also named 
Joseph. He was a carpenter by trade, and was a " Minute Man" 
in the Revolution. 

George's education was confined to the town school in Glouces- 
ter. After the removal to Salem, he was for several years a 
clerk in the drug store, and afterward learned carriage and orna- 
mental painting. Later he gave some attention to art, became 
a pupil of the famous Boston artist, F. Alexander, and wrote 
many articles, in the same interest, for the JYetc York Herald^ the 
JJo.iton Transcript, and other papers. More recently, he has 
been interested in life-saving and other inventions, some or all of 
which reveal his own faculty and skill in this line. Old as he is — 
for he is past his fourscore — he is still fully engaged in these 
pursuits. 

But it is his anti-slavery record, which chiefly attracts us. In 
1833, sixt}/ years ago, he heard for the lirst time a lecture on 
slavery. It was given in the South Church, Salem, by that ster- 
ling Abolitionist, Rev. Cyrus P. Grosvenor, who was not able to 
procure for the purpose his own church, the Second Baptist. Rev. 
Brown Emerson, pastor of the South Church, was not present, 
and some of his parishioners painted their pews afresh so that the 
reformers should not use them. It was at the close of that 
meeting that Mi". Putnam, at the age of 21, signed his name as a 
member of the "• Salem Anti-Slavery Society." During that year 
and afterwards he carried around Salem, for signatures, *■' Pe- 
titions for the Abolition of Slavery in the District of Columbia." 
Almost every prominent citizen indignantly refused his name, but 
Hon. Leverett Saltonstall signed, and said he would be willing to 
do it every day in the week. Mr. Saltonstall did excellent work 
in Congress for '" Free speech" and against the "• Atherton Gag 
Law." Another noble man whom Putnam recalls to mind and 
whom he knew very well, was "Master William B. Dodge," who 
requested the authorities to remove him from his place as teacher 
of a White tichool and appoint him as teacher of a " Nigger 
ISchool,''' and who afterward opened a free singing school and 
taught the colored people music. Mr. Dodge often preached in 
tlie Alms House, in Salem. Finally he emigrated with his family 



121 

to Ab!ugtoii, 111., all of them tiikiug with them theii- anti-shivery 
[)riiK'ii)les. 

In 1834, Mr. Putnam met John G. Whittier, Amos A. Phelps, 
Abner Sangei-, and Henry B. iStanton, at the house of Rev. 
Charles T. Torrey, pastor of the Howard !St. Church, Salem, and 
assisted them in arranging for the circulation of anti-slavery doc- 
uments. Mr. Torrey, as elsewhere stated, was subsequently im- 
lu'isoned at Baltimore for aiding in the escape of slaves, and died 
in his dungeon. It was at Salem, in the •• Tabernacle Church," 
that Putnam first heard Wendell Phillips, Samuel J. May, and 
William Lloyd Garrison, and among the faithful abolitionists of 
the city whom he remembers with grateful honor were the intrepid 
John A. Innis and such Quakers as Josiah Maynard and William 
H. Chase. With a few friends, he was invited to meet, stealthily' 
at night, George Thompson, on his first visit to America, in 1834, 
when having been mobbed and hunted for iiis life at New York 
and Boston, and also at Salem, he was concealed at the house, in 
North Salem, of Rev. Mr. Spencer, a retired Episcopal clergy- 
man from PLngland. Some of the party I'cmaiued outside while 
they listened with breathless interest to the eloquent foreigner 
within, as, with subdued voice, he described the terrible conflict 
with slavery, which was in reserve for our countr}'. But these 
are only a few of the many strange experiences and exciting- 
scenes with which our old soldier of freedom was familiar in his 
early manhood. 

In 1842, he made the acquaintance of Charles Dickens, on 
his first visit to the United States, and, at the request of the 
renowned novelist, he travelled with him as private secretary, and, 
after his death, wrote an account of their journey iugs together, 
which was pulilished in the October and November numbers of 
the Atlantic Monthly^ of 1870. For a time he took \\\^ his resi- 
dence at Nashua, where he first heard the "• Hutchinson Family." 
and where, as at Lowell and other places, he himself taught 
singing schools. Having married Julia A. Putnam, of Chelms- 
ford, iMass., he settled at Lyuu, where he now lives. He was 
there when George Thompson came again to America, in 18;')!, 
and he was present at the meeting in Faneuil Hall when the Eng- 
lishman and his abolition friends were mobbed and driven from 
the building, at the hazard of their lives. Putnam afterward 
heard Thonqjson at Plymouth, Fall River, and Lawrence, and 
wrote for the XtV>era^or accounts of his s|)eech('s. At the request 
of the Committee of the Massachusetts Anti-.Slavery Society, he 
accompajiied Mr. Thompson to western New York, anil also 
wrote accounts of his speeches there, for the Liherutor as well as 
the Anti-Slavery Standard. He was with Thom[)S()n, Phillii)s 



122 

and Edmund Quincy, at Springfield, when an immense and fniions 
mob, hung and burned the ilhistrious visitor from abroad in effigy, 
and assailed " Hampden Hotel" with eggs and brick1)ats, and 
howled and roared till long past midnight ; and he wrote an 
account of that, too, for Mr. Garrison's paper. Uut the next day, 
the gifted orator drew a great crowd to hear him and effected a 
wonderful revulsion of popular feelings in his favor. Putnnni 
continued to report his speeches as he spoke in various states, at 
one time going with him and with Samuel J. May and Frederick 
Douglass to Canada, where they mustered very large gatherings 
in Toronto and Montreal. They afterward visited Philadel[)hia 
and there met James and Lucretia Mott (in whose parlors they 
held their meeting, not being able to obtain a hall), and IMary 
Grew, Rubert Purvis and many other distinouished abolitionists. 

On their return to Boston. Thompson held a grand farewell 
reception just prior to his departure for P^ngland. For some time 
Putnam was employed in service as a lecturer — spent tvvo years 
in Minnesota — and then removed his family to Peterboro', N. 
y., where he wrote for Gerrit Smith and prepared his circulars 
and addresses for publication for several years, accompanying 
and assisting him as he went to New York City, Cnnada aiul 
elsewhere in anti-slavery work. While living at Peterboro' 
he wrote and delivered there an address on "• The Life of George 
Thompson." Subsequently he removed with his family to Biller- 
ica, Mass., and as the news arrived of the death of that glorious 
champion of liberty, he repeated his eulogy at a JNIemoi ial Sei'vice, 
held at the Ruggles St. Church, Boston, by the '• Wendell Phillips 
Club," Wendell Phillips suggesting him for the service, and 
many famous anti-slavery representatives being present on the 
occasion. Others spoke at the meeting, and it was then and there 
that Mr. Garrison's voice was heard in public for the last time. 
One of the Boston papers said of Mr. Putnam's address, that it 
*•' was of unusual interest and was warmly applauded throughout." 
It was afterward delivered at various otlier places. 

Besides the leading abolitionists already mentioned, our friend 
had been associated in his labors with such men and women as 
Parker Pillsbur}', Francis Jackson, Elizur Wiight, Oliver John- 
son, Pev. George B. Cheevcr, Charles K. Whipple, B. F. Mudge 
and the Buffums and Thompsons of Lynn, Harriet Tubman the 
heroine. Sojourner Truth, the Fosters and the Burleighs, Rev. W. 
H. Fish, Rev. Beriah Green, Rev. John T. Sargent, Lewis Hay- 
den, Hon. Simeon Dodge, Lewis Ford, and others whose names 
history will not let die ; while, among his friends and acquaint- 
ances, there have also been Rev. Samuel May of Leicester, Rev. 
Samuel Johnson, Lucv Stone, Antoinette Blackwell, Elizabeth C. 



123 

8t:uiton, Mrs. Mary Kiolimond, Siisnii IJ. Anthony, Giles Stcbbins, 
F. B. .Sanborn, Rev. John Pierpont, Rev. Theodore Parker, Tlie- 
odore I). Weld, and John Jiron-n! At the honse of (ierrit Smith 
he once passed an evenino; with the heio of Har}>er's Feny and 
at Peterboro' attended a meeting for prayer and addresses at the 
hour of the martyr's execution. 

Of Mr. Putnam's connection with a branch of the "Boston 
Secret Association," which was formed to prevent the cai»ture of 
fugitive slaves by their masters, and with which such men as Sam- 
uel May, Sen., Francis Jackson, Dr. Bovvditch, and other worthies 
were connected, we have not space to write here. Nor of his 
many other as yet unmentioned labors, speeches, and contribu- 
tions to the press. He has, moreover, a decided gift for song, as 
his verses which the Hutchinsons have sung so widely show. His 
first Poem, prompted by the " Atherton Gag Law," was publislied 
in the " Salem Observer," and copied into the "• LiUerator." 
Another was delivered at the meeting which George Thompson 
addressed at Plymouth. Among others which we recall was one 
of unusual merit which not long ago he wrote on the occasion of 
the unveiling of the statue of John P. Hale, at Concord, N. H., 
attesting, if evidence were needed, that the veteran who has 
written and has wrought so well and so much, is still, in his eight- 
ies, the lover of Freedom, for whose sake he has freely spent his 
life, surrendered ease and comfort, and endured no small shai-e 
of prejudice and ojiprobrium. 

GEORGE T. DOWNING. 

Personal friend of Garrison and Pliillii)s, Whittier and Sum- 
ner and Theodore Paiker, and nearly all the great Anti-Slavery 
men, George T. Downing is himself one of the most meritorious of 
the a1)olitionists of America. Like Purvis, Douglass, Garnet, 
Ward, Wells Brown, Charles Lennox Kemond, and others of his 
race, of similar reputation, he is possessed of marked ai)ility and 
attainments, has felt keenl}' the wrongs and sorrows of his people, 
and has been a fearless and heroic tighter in their behalf. 

A very interesting account of him appeared in a New York 
l)aper some years ago and we cull some of its details for our own 
l)rief sketch of him here. Though he was born free, he is 
descended from a slave. About a centur}' and a iialf ago, there 
lived in Jinketig, a little town of Accomac County, A'a., a rich 
and influential slave-holder, whose name was (Captain) John 
J)owning, who became a convert uucUm" a religious revival, but 
who was told b}' the minister, as he would hai'dly have been told 
by a clergyman in that state a century latei', that he could not 



124 

join the church unless he set free his shaves. Accordingly the 
Captain at once emancipated them all. Among them was a 
youi]g girl, who, as she grew to womanhood, married and l)ore a 
family of children. These seem to have taken the nam.' of the 
old niaster, as was so common in the south, and one of them was 
Thomas Downing, tiie father of the sul)ject of our story. His 
mother, the little girl just mentioned, was of commanding pres- 
ence and of strong character and much consideration. The family- 
moved to New York, where Thomas, after a brief stay at Phil- 
adel[)hia, became interested in public affairs and was well known 
for his manliness and energy. George, the eldest son of Thomas 
and Rebecca, was born in that city, Dec. 30, 1819, was reared 
under Christian influences, and early learned to respect himself 
and defend his own rights. Negro children of New York, as 
elsewhere in the North, were then, as also later, frequently 
insulted and stoned and beaten in the streets. No one was more 
quick or l)rave than George Downing t(i re|)el the assailants, and. 
•with the aid of his youtiiful colored comi)anious, drive them aw.ay. 
He attended public scliools in Orange anil Mulberry streets, and 
also rt'ceived private instruction ; and among his mates were boys 
who afterward rose to distinction. One of them was the color.'d 
UH'ator, Heni-y Highland (iurnet. Some of the scholars formed a 
Itterarv societv and began to discuss •• live subjects." and they 
passed a liesolution, declaring that they woidd not join in cele- 
bratino- the Fourth of July, because the Declaration of Independ- 
ence was, to the coloi'ed people of the United States, "a ijcrfect 
mockery." It may safidy be credited that our youth was among 
the foremost in this action. Then we lind him, as an efficient 
a^ent of the '■'•Underground Railroad," helping fugitive slaves to 
make o'ood their escape, attending Anti-Slavery Conventions, and 
in numberless ways working to arouse i)ublic sentiment against 
the cruel and monstrous evil tliat was in the land. He was one of 
a famous Committee of Thirteen, organized at the time of the 
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, to make war against that 
infamous measure and render it a nullity. At the time of the 
Anthony Burns excitement, he was summoned to Boston and 
took the first train for the city, to join the mustering friends of 
Liberty who had been called to the rescue. Standing in one of 
the streets, he saw a body of Worcester men marching by with a 
banner inscribed with the word " J^Veedom." The account adds : 
*■' A number of police assaulted the procession and captured the 
flao-. Ml'. Downing's whole nature was aroused. He rushed into 
the crowd and used his muscles, strength and agility for all they 
were worth. After a desperate struggle, in which the banner was 
torn almost to shreds, he ca|)tured it from the police, and amidst 



125 

expressions of admiration :tt his courji<>;e and strength, and 
apijlause at his success, he ])0\\' the embk'in to tlie (illiee of 
liohert INIonis, \vl)ieh was near by." Mr. Downing's dauntless 
spirit was manifested, in like manner, in connection with the well- 
remembered John Brown meeting at Tremont Temple. The 
assemblage then; was broken up by the police and intluential i)ro- 
slavery parties, but it adjourned to meet in the evening at theJoj 
Stieet Baptist C'huich. '• a then stronghold of the colored i)eo- 
l»le." The city authorities warnetl ?tlr. Downiuii and .1. S. 
IMarlin, who were most prominent in the management v( the 
occasion, that such a gathering would resnlt in bloodshed and 
that they themselves were powerless to prevent it. They were 
reminded, by Downing and Martin, of their duty to preserve 
order and protect the citizens, and the meeting was held and was 
attended by a dense crowd and was a great success. Downing and 
other friends of it arming themselves for an emergenc}' and 
Wendell Phillips making one of his most eloquent si)eeches. A 
vast, howling mob gathered without, but the mayor called out the 
militia, violence was restrained, and " the light of free speech 
was vindicated." 

Duiing the war, Mr. Downing was ver}' active in forming 
several colored legiments, ol)taiuing from Goveinor John A. 
Andrew a written assurance that every soldier should be treated 
with equal and exact justice, and that there should be no discrim- 
ination on account of color. While on a visit to Washington, iu 
connection with such enlistments, he was assigned the charge of 
the Restaurant of the House of Representatives, and, accepting 
the api)ointnient, he made the acquaintance of many of the lead- 
ing members of Congress, Imt especially became an intimate friend 
of Charles Sumner, who on his death-bed gras])ed his hand and 
said with great earnestness, '•'• Don't let my Civil Rights Bill fail !" 
In defiance of all objections or sciuples on the part of others, 
he allowed persons of his own race to be served with the rest at 
the Restaurant, and he and his family were the first of that race 
to occupy a box in a Washington theatre, lie was a man of just 
the metal to despise and break down the prejudice which had so 
long debarred his people from such privileges as these. In the 
exercise of the sanu; spirit he was influential in securing the first 
appointment of a colored man as a United States Minister abroad, 
in the person of Mr. Bassett who was sent as representative to 
the Repul)lic of Hayti. As a citizen of Rhode Island, he labored 
for twelve years to abolish all distinctions on account of color in 
the public schools of that state, traversed the state and appealed 
to the people as well as to the Legislature to remove the unjust 
law from the statute book, and finally accomplished his obje Ot 



126 

In a reoigauizatiou of the Rhode Island militia, the Governor 
commissioned him as captain, but of a colored compan3\ Mv. 
Downing declined the honor, protesting against the accompanying 
or virtual discriminatiou. The Governor renewed the appoint- 
ment and made it satisfactory. 

"• Mr. l^owning," it is said, " has not only succeeded as a pub- 
lic man, but has also shown marked business ai>ility. He owns a 
very valuable estate prominently located on the most fashionable 
thoroughfare of Newport." Able, upright, enterprising, highly 
intelligent, and eminently useful and benevolent, he is held in 
high esteem in the city and state of his adoption, and by all who 
know him, and they are many. He has frequently received note- 
worthy marks of respect and confidence from associations or from 
his fellow-citizens, as when he was for several years made Grand 
Master in the Order of Odd Fellows, or when he was selected to 
make an address of welcome to the great Hungarian l^atriot, 
Louis Kossuth, on his visit to this country. But it is for his loyal 
and faithful devotion, through a long life, to his own contemned 
and aflbcted people, and his zealous and persistent efforts still 
more to elevate and ennoble them after he had lived to rejoice in 
their emancipation, that he will most of all be gratefully and 
lastingly remembered and honoreil. The touching allusion which 
he made to the recent death of the beloved wife of his youth, at 
the commemorative meeting, will not be forgotten by those who 
were present. 

REV. PETER RANDOLPH. 

Those who were able to comprehend the nature and signifi- 
cance of the commemorative meeting, and availed themselves of 
the opportunity afforded them to be present, will quite agiee with 
us, we think, in the opinion that one of the most interesting fea- 
tures of the occasion was the presence and brief, simple address 
of Rev. Peter Randolph, of Chariest own. There were many of 
those who took part in the proceedings who had rendered greater 
service to the children of oppression and who were far more wide- 
ly known to fame than he, but it was meet that there should also 
1)6 one there who should appear as a representative of the •' race 
redeemed from slavery" and as a living witness to what his whiter 
brothers and sisters had done in its behalf. As he himself so 
pithily said, in his speech, they might speak of slavery as an 
" idea," but he could speak of it as a "' reality." In the course 
of his remarks, he referred to an account of his own experience, 
at the south and north both, which he was preparing for the press. 
The book has since been published by James H. Earle, 178 Wash- 
ington Street, Boston, and we gather from the volume a few 



127 

details of his history for our notice of him here, hoping that those 
who nia}' read these pages will gi-t the fnll story itself and so all 
the more know the wrongs and snfferings which were once endnred 
by the colored millions in " the land of the free." There is nnich 
poi)nlar ignorance conceriiing the subject, especially among the 
rising generations of our c^onntrymen ; and there is no l)etter 
source of information for tliem than the trustworthy testimony of 
those who have themselves tasted the bitter fruit of the deailiy 
tree. In the latter part of Mr. Randolph's "■ From Slave Cabin 
to Pulpit,'' he re-published, witli an Introductory Note by his 
good friend Rev. Samuel May, his '• Sketches o}' Slave J^lfe,'' 
which was issued as a pamphlet in 1855. 

About 73 years ago he was born a slave, in \'irginia, and 
was owned, with 81 others, b}' a man named Edloe. Led by his 
slave mother, he was directed, at the early age of ten years, to 
the Christ, sure refuge and comfort of the hapless and sorrowing. 
For a long time he labored under the impression that he was 
called of God to be a preacher. But how could he i)reach unless 
he coukl read and tlms be able to study the Bible? His great 
desire was to be acquainted with the Book of books. A friend 
taught him to spell words of three letters. By slow degrees he 
learned the art, so as at last to read without much difficulty what 
to him was '• the source of all knowledge." Then he learned to 
write, obtaining a book and copying its letters upon the ground, 
in the absence of slate or paper. He thus became able, at length, 
to write his own passes, as he went from one plantation to another. 
His father was owned by a Mr. Harrison, of an adjoining planta- 
tion, where he was made a slave-driver under a white overseer. 
"• My father would often tell my mother how the white overseer 
had made him cruelly whip his fellovvs until the blood ran down 
to the ground. All his days he had to follow this dreadfid em- 
ployment of flogging men, women and children, being placed in 
this helpless condition by the tyranny of his master." The name 
of the overseer on the plantation to which Peter belonged was 
Lacy. One da}' a pig was found dead, evidently from natural 
causes. No one of the slaves would confess that lie had killed it, 
and so LacN' flogged them all, taking his raw-hide, with a wire 
attached to the end of it, and giving each man 20 lashes on the 
bare back. '• The blood was seen upon the side of the barn where 
these slaves were whipped, for days and months. The wounds of 
these poor creatures prevented them from performing their daily 
tasks. They were, indeed, so cut up, that i)ieces came out of the 
l)acks of some of them, so that a child twelve or thirteen years 
old could lay his list in the cruel i)laces. My brother Benjamin 
was one of the slaves so savajielv beaten." 



128 

Denjamiii, pnrtieulaily. was no unlortunate as to encounter 
tlie prejudice or dislike of tlie overseer, wlto was always watching 
for an occasion to wlnp or lacerate him. Kre hull)' he was doomed 
to even a worse fate, Itut one, alas, so common to the sharers of 
his lot. Peter, whose oldest brother he was, wi-ites : " When my 
father died, he left my mother with live children. * * * * 
She had to work all day for her owner, and at night for those who 
were dearer to her than life; for what was allowed her by Pklloe 
was not sufficient for our wants. She used to get a little corn, 
without his knowledge, and boil it for us to satisfy our hunger," 
and '' sometimes would beg the cast off garments from the neigh- 
bors, to cover our nakedness, and when they had none to give, 
she would sit and cry over us and pray to the God of the widoAv 
and fatherless for help and succor. At last my oldest brother 
roas sold from her^ and carried where she never saw him again. 
She went mourning for him all her days, like a bird robbed of her 
young — like Rachel bereft of her children, who would not be 
comforted, because they were not. She departed this life on the 
27th of September, 1847, for that world ' where the wicked cease 
fiom troubling, and the weary are at rest.' " And this v:as 
^Slavery: — this the evil and wickedness which the abolitionists 
contended against with all the power that God had given them, 
and for their righteous and glorious warfare against which, they 
were stigmatized as "fanatics," and ''infidels," and "'blas- 
phemers," and " pests," and were visited with ostracism, violence, 
imprisonment, and death itself ! 

Edloe made his will, March 20th, 1838, six years before his 
decease, providing " f(jr the emancipation of his slaves and for 
the payment to each one of fifty^ dollars, whenever they should 
elect to receive their freedom and go out of the State of Virginia." 
But though Kdloe, like man}' a master, was not void of all sense of 
justice and humar.ity, j'et, as Randolph says : " Even if the 
master was kind, the overseers, whom the law protected, and 
from whom tliei'e was no appeal on the part of the slave, could 
maltreat and abuse with impunitj'." I^it the provisions of the will 
were not carried out in the spirit of the testator. For three 3'ears 
after their master's death, his Slaves were kept at work as before, 
not being able to obtain from John A. Seldon, the executor, the 
money intended for them. At the ent^ of that time, they decided 
to take what they could get — less than $15 each — and leave for 
the North. There were sixty-six of them in all, of both sexes 
and all ages ; and among them were Peter Randolph and his wife 
and child. They reached Boston, on the Schooner Thomas II. 
Thompson, on the 15th of September, 1847. It being noised 
abroad that a large number of emancipated Slaves had landed at 



12'J 

Lono- Wharf, n ei'owd of pei'sons soon oatlu'r('(l to sec tliciii nnd 
'• coii<>rattilate tlu'iu on their new hirtli to Freedom." Prominent 
:imon<i those who thus greeted them were William Lloyd (Ttirrison, 
John A. Andi-ew, Wendell rhilli[>s and Rev. Samuel Mav. Some 
of the strangers went to the otiice of the Uhtrator in Cornhill 
and there met other warm-hearted Anti-Slaverv friends. 'J1ii-ongh 
the kindness of Mr. Gai-rison and Mr. JMay and some of their 
associates, al)out half of the new-comers soon fotuul situations in 
the city and its immediate vicinity, and the lest in places more 
remote. One who, like Randolph, could i-ead and write, was 
more in demand, but even he received hut a. dollar and a half a 
week, with ])onrd, until he was employed at the Anti-Slavery 
F'air, in Deceml)er. Here he had the pleasure of meeting many 
abolitionists and hearing lectures and discussions such as he had 
never heard before. ''• The language and words used b^' some in 
describing and denouncing the Slave Power, were sti'ong and 
uncompromising. Yet the words were inadequate and too weak 
to express the barbarity and cruelty to which my brethren in the 
South were exposed." 

Mr Randolph makes mention of sympathizing tirms and 
l»usiness men who gave him employment and who usnall}' en- 
trusted him with their keys: J. C. Elms. President of the Shoe 
and Leather Bank of Boston. Isaac PVnno, Michael Simpson of 
the Saekville Carpet Co., William I^ond & Son, T. C. Maiian, 
Little & Brown, Diitton & Haskell of the Boston Tram^cnpt^ 
Henry Callender, INIr. Morey, Merritt & ]\rullen, Tyler Batcheller, 
Charles Adams, Wm. B. Spooner, and Ezekias Chase. Daniel 
N. Haskell, of the TrcmscHpt^ was of much help to him in 
getting his "Sketches of Slave Life" before the pul)lic. Mr. 
Adams, who wanted him to scrub his tloor, was a little surprised, 
perhaps, that he asked three dollars a day, and, being himself a 
member of the Legislature, he reminded his colored l)r()the'r that 
what he required was more than they got at the State House! 
"But my work is icorth more," quoth Peter. The latter seems to 
have made his first speech at a memorial meeting of the Boston 
merchants in honor of Mr. George Batcheller. His addi-ess was 
highly complimented and was well rei)orted in a New York paper. 

Randolph and most of his companions in the city soon con- 
nected themselves with a body of Bai)tist brethren worshipping in 
a hall in lielknap, now Joy street. In Virginia he had been a 
member of that communion. The little society grew and was 
soon organized as the Twelfth Baptist Church of the city and 
Rev. Leonard A. Grimes became the pastor. Randolph, who is 
now the onlj' surviving one of its original members, was licensed 
by it to be a Baptist preacher and at once began to do missionary 



130 

work. He visited, for this purpose, St. Jolius and other pUices 
in New Brunswick, and then returned to lioston and preached in 
vSornerville and Dorchester and Plymouth, and elsewhere. In 
185G, he was regularly ordained at Brooklyn, N. Y., and took 
charge, for a year, of a struggling church of colored people in 
New Haven, Conn., attending lectures at Yale College. " I 
departed from New Haven richer in knowledge and experience, 
if in nothing else." His next settlement was in Newburg, N. Y., 
and then followed, during the latter pait of the war, two years in 
Boston, where he was engaged in a small newspaper business, and 
in preaching for the Old Ladies' Home on riiillips street. At last 
he went down to Richmond to do work in his native state, and 
was in Baltimore on his way thither, at the time of the assassina- 
tion and funeral of President Lincoln. He proceeded to Rich- 
mond by way of City Point. '' The colored people from all parts 
of the state were crowding in at the Capital, running, leaping, 
and praising God that Freedom had come at last." On his first 
Sunday in Richmond he preached at one of the principal camps to 
a lartre congregation. Two weeks after his arrival at that city, he 
was invited to be the pastor there of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. 
Accepting the call, he became the first settled colored minister in 
the iSoath, only white clergymen having previously been per- 
mitted to preach to negroes. He could but realize, most deeply, 
what a change had come over Virginia as well as over himself, 
from the time when, only 18 years before, he had trod her soil as 
a slave. Various perplexing questions confronted him in con- 
nection with his work. C>ne related to the marriage question, it 
being necessary^to establish proper family relations among the 
freedmen, such as could not exist under the system of Slavery. 
Special legislative enactments were required to remedy, if only in 
part, the prevalent evil. Then again, at meetings, the men and 
the women were separated from each other, and the latter had no 
equal rights or privileges, in the church. This was all broken up 
by Mr. Randolph, who had the blacks assemble like the whites, 
and all entitled to vote. Still again, near the close of the war, 
southern Baptist churches (whites) had passed strong resolutions 
against their sister churches at the North, but now they wanted 
their colored brethren to affiliate with themselves rather than t(» 
maintain alliance with their northern friends. But they were told 
that this could be done only on two conditions, viz : that they 
would take back all they had said against the Baptists at the 
North and would treat those whose co-operation they solicited as 
Christian brethren and not as Slaves. Randolph was chosen to 
represent the latter, but all conferences were of no avail. The 
whites still held that the colored people had no raeu who were tit 



131 

to preach and l)e pastors, aud they vvere otherwise iudisi)osed to 
coiJie to satisfactory terms. Those who were the real and only 
I'hristiaiis in the controversy' felt that they "were jiistitied in 
coniinii' out and forniino' ase[)arate orujanization." A convention 
of colored Uaptists of llichniond and vicinity was called, a per- 
aianent organization was effected under the name of the Shiloii 
Haptist Association of Virginia, and Peter Randolph was elected 
its i'rosident, with John Oliver as its Secretary. '" The said John 
Oliver was formerly of Boston, but went tSouth immediately at 
the close of the war, and rendered much service for his people. 
I am proud to say that this Association has been productive of 
much good among the colored l>a|>tists of Virginia." 

Aft vr fonr years and a half of active service in Riciunond, 
jMr. Randolph returned once more to Boston, a city which he had 
had abundant reason to love. lie began work in building up a 
Baptist church at the South End, commencing with a Sunday 
school which Rev. Dr. A. J. Gordon and his people had formed 
iit 1210 Washington St. Large numbers were adeled and the 
iiew society n'»t long aftc;rward removed to a more commodious 
[)lac.j of w jrshi[) on W^st Concord St., secured to them throusi'ii 
Drs. Lorimer and G<»rdon and their friends. "The Ebenezer 
Church continued to increase in memberslii|) aud influence, until 
today it is one of the largest churches in Boston." Subsequently 
we find our preaclier e iixaged in quite extensive missionary labors, 
in Provitlence, R. I., in Worcester, Mass., at Mashpee among 
the Indians, at Nantucket, in Albany, N. Y., and in West New- 
ton, Mass. After leaving his Baptist church in Boston, he read 
law for a time iu the oiHce of E. G. Walker, Esq., feeling the 
need of some better a -quaintance with matters of civil govern- 
ment. He was made a Justice of the Peace by Governor Wash- 
burn, and was successively reappointed by Governor Long and 
(xovernor Am.'s. He now lives at Cluirlestown, Alass., and we 
liave no a|)ol(jgy to m ike for the considerable space we have 
given to tiie story of this humble, but e:irnest friend, who is now 
free, but was once a slave, who taught himself on the plantation 
iiow to read and write, who was then in thrall and misery, but 
iias since done all this work for God and man. 

REV. DANIEL S. WHITNEY. 

Mr. Whitney was born in South Danvers (now Peabody). 
March -Ith, 1810. He si)ent his boyhood in ''Upper Beverly" 
and went to school at the old red school-house that stood at the 
intersection there of the roads leading from Danvers Plains and 
/Dauvers Neck. One winter the school was kept by the sisters. 



Hannah and Betsey Putnam of Danvers, wlio weie teachers of 
considerable local celebrity in their day. Our veneiable friend-, 
who was their pupil, has recalled to us the circumstance, that at a 
time when it was not customary to spare the rod, these ladies put 
it aside entirely. " Hannah's tongue did the Ian hi jir/ for tlie biir 
l)oys, and Betse}^ with the tenderest of tones, did tlie prat/in;/. 
They kept an excellent school, and the committee gave ihem the 
credit of making the best writers the district had ever had." 
Daniel was early instructed in the art of making sIkjcs, and as 
the occupation Avas an important aid to his wiilowed mother, he 
gladly followed it until he was twenty-two years of age. lu 
Danvers and Beverly and in the towns of Essex County very 
generally, may still be seen the little shoe shops (now quite 
deserted in these days of machinery), in which the friends or 
votaries of St. Crispin diligently plied their humble vocation and 
fashioned the prepared stock or material into " pumps" or 
" brogans" for the larger estal)lishments of the manufacturers, 
and it was especially during the winter days and evenings whei! 
there was but little employment for them out-of-doors, that they 
were most busily engaged in these small sti'uctures, and in con- 
nection with their toil at the bench would discuss together, as 
perhaps no other class of workmen were accustomed to do, all 
the Vwe questions of the hour. Th.'y were a thoughtful and 
intelligent set of men, were fond of reading, were good patrons 
of the newspapers, and were in the habit of doing their own 
thinking. Dr. Channing and the late Dr. Peabody and otheiv 
have paid fitting tributes to their character and have written of the 
peculiarly helpful influence of their calling upoii the mind and 
life. Dr. Peabody, himself a native of Beverly, wrote concerning 
the Fraternity of 8t. Crispin, that it '* has almost vindicated for 
itself a place among the liberal professions by its high grade of 
general intelligence, and b}' the number of eminent men who 
have issuetl from its ranks, from Hans Sachs, whose lyrics were 
.-imong the great forces of the Protestant Reformation, to ourowu 
VVhittier, whose place in the foremost rank of living poets none 
can challenge ;" and Dr. Channing, in the course of a similar 
train of remark in his discourse on Noah Worcester, the Philan- 
thropist, says that it is an occupation which Coleridge refers to 
MS '• followed by a greater number of eminent men than any other 
trade." Hans Sachs, Worcester, and Whittier, George Kox and 
.lohn Pounds, Koger Sherman, Henry Wilson, and William Lloyd 
(iarrison himself, with scores of other great helpers of mankind, 
were all, at some time in their life, shoemakers. Whittier's 
jubilant song of •' y'he iS hoe makers,''' will be remembered iu 
connection. 



loo 

We \\A\ recall what luirseries of Freedom the little shoe 
ih()()s of Essex Comity were in old Anti-Slavery times. It was 
511 such places rather than in the factories and homes of tin- 
prosjjerons or wealthy, or in tlie learned professions, the colleges 
and seminaries, or tlie more titled and inllnential classes, that the 
Abolition sentiment lirst took deepest root. It was there that 
txarrison and •• 77ie Liberator" earliest found highest favor, and 
iu Free-Soil days the s|)eeches of (Jiddings and Mann, and 
Sumner and Anclri'w, were read with greatest avidity' and delight. 
The shoemakers understood the (pu'stion of (piestions better than 
tUd their proniler and more nourishing neighbors, crowded the 
]»ublic meetings and made them enthusiastic for Liberty, and 
tliemselves in large numl)ers were borne on the popular wave into 
legislative halls and oflices of trust and power, to do the work 
which others had opposed or neglected. 

but we need not pursue the digression. No one knows the 
•jtory better, perhaps, than Mr. Whitney himself, who is doubt- 
less grateful for his eai'ly avocation for more reasons than one. 
At the age of twenty he had joined the Temperance army, with 
whose cause he has now been earnestly and actively i.^Mitilied for 
t>-J years. About the time he quit the shoe-bench, or shortly 
afterward, he became more deeply interested than evei' in religions 
matters, having charge of the Sunday school of the First Univer- 
salist church in Salem, whose [Kistor was then Rev. Lemuel Willis. 
Through the advice of Mr. Willis he was led to prepare himself 
for the Gospel ministry. After some years, spent at academies 
iu To|)sfield and Andover, anil iu school-teaching, he eutei'ed 
?tpon his theological studies under Rev. Paul Dean of Boston, 
and iu due time was ordained as an Evangelist by the Massachu- 
5.etts Association of Restorationists. Subse(pieutly, with yearly 
4*ngagements, he occui)ied three pulpits, in Middlesex Village, 
West Boylston, and iJerlin, but was never ordained as pastor of a 
ehurch. 

From early life Mr. Whitney has been a lover of freedom 
and a fiiend of many reform movements. We have alreadv 
i;islanced his devotion to the Tem[)erance Cause. His |)rofound 
sympathy with the Anti-Slavery struggle dates es|)ecially from 
the time, when, at the age of 2G, he huirtl R.'v. Samuel J. May 
tleliver a i)ovverful discourse upon the sid)ject at the Branch 
Church, in Salem. In .Maich, 1.S12, wishing to enjoy more free- 
««om in religion and in philauthiopic work than the int(ilerance of 
tlie churches then allowed, Iu; joined Adiu Ballou's Ilopedale 
Community, with which Rev. William II. Fish .also became con- 
nected, as has been stated on a previous page. While there, 
Uiongh not occupied with tentmakutf/, he yet engaged in various 



134 

useful, praoticjil kinds of labor, aside from preaehivig, as was his- 
wont, here and there, at home and abroad. 

It was during his residence and work at Boylston, in 18o3, 
that he received the honor of l)eino; elected as a delegate from 
that town to the State Constitutional Convention of that year, and 
had the satisfaction of voting in that body to leave the teim male 
out of its amended Constitution, subsequently rejected by the 
people. At Soutliboro', where he soon established his home and 
where he has lived ever since, he shared the risks so many en- 
countered \n the terrible Slave-hunting period. He was a street 
preacher but once in his life, and it was in Boston in the day 
when Simms, the fugitive, was abducted, and when even the 
stones of the streets seemed to cry out against tlie crime of his 
rendition. During the last years of the war, he went down to 
City Point and served with the Sanitary Commission under Frank 
B. Vay. Since the war, he has acted as Postmaster of Southlioro' 
for ten yeais, resigning the otHce more than ten years ago, as 
being too old for the position antl its cares. 

h\ 1842, i\Ir. Whitney married Miss Hannah S. P. Cotton, 
youngest daughter of Rev. Ward Cotton, of Boylston, and a 
descendant of that " burning and shining light of the Puritan 
Church," Rev. John Cotton of Boston. Slie was one of the con- 
structors of the remarkal)le patch-work quilt, sent by the Anti- 
Slavery women of Boylston to Mrs. Chapman's great Fair of 
more than a half century ago and l)ought by Anti-Slavery women 
of Boston and presented to Mr. Garrison. It had a kneeling 
slave as a central figure and an Anti-Slavery sentiment written in 
every square. Mrs. Whitney is in good health for one who, like 
her husband, was born in 1810, but on account of an infirmity of 
lameness is kept quite at home and was unable to accompany him 
to Dauvers, on the 26th of Ai)ril. Her l)it of property in South- 
boro' has been owned more than 70 years by women, and still the- 
" Taxation without Representation" goes on, as when Otis thun- 
dered against the injustice before the war of the Revolution. It 
is no wonder that the aged and venerated pair are devoted friends 
of the cause of woman. For more than 50 years they have 
unitedly l)orne consistent and unfaltering testimony in behalf of 
Freedom, Equal Rights, Temperance and Religion ; and now in 
cheerful ho[)e, they stand "on the very edge of the river waiting 
to pass over." 

MISS SARAH H. SOUTHWICK. 

Though not so old as some of the surviving Abolitionists who 
were present at the Danvers Meeting or were unavoidal)ly absent, 
]Miss Southwick, having been born into an old anti-slavery family 



135 

circle and luiving from very childhood shared its active zeal and 
sympathies, has a rich store-house of memories of the great strug- 
gle, and very few now living were present at so many of its more 
thrilling scenes, or on so many of its more important occasions, 
as she. In her brief wiitteii address, as i)rintcd on previous 
pages, she has given, hy request, some account of her ancestors, 
and also of the Boston mob of 1835, of a part of the attendant 
circumstances of which she was a spectator, however she may not 
have witnessed, like Dr. Porter, the brutal and atrocious outrage 
itself. From her ^ ReminLseences of Earli/ Anti-Slavery JJays^'* 
which she has "■ privately printed" in a small volume within the 
last few months, we gather' other recollections of dee[) interest, 
illustrative of her own life, and of stirring events with wliicii, as 
an abolitionist, she w:.s personally associated. 

8he was born in 1821, at North Vassalboro, in Maine. Her 
father, Joseph Southwick, was one of the original subscribers for 
the Liherato>'^ and was a delegate from Maine to the Convention 
which formed the American Anti-Slavery Society, in 1833. Her 
mother, Thankful Hussey, was, like Mr. Southwick himself, of 
life-long devotion to Anti-Slavery work, inheriting her |)rinciples 
from her father, Samuel Hussey, a merchant of Portland, through 
whose acquaintance and sym[)athy with the labors of Wilberforce 
and Claikson the family were largel}' made ready to espouse the 
cause in Ameiiea and to ""welcome Mr. Garrison with open 
arms." Mr. Hussey was a good friend of fugitive slaves, who 
often came to Portland concealed in vessels sailing from the 
West Indies and who on their arrival were lodged in jail for safe- 
keeling. With the jailei-'s connivance, eftectual means were 
quite sure to be found for their sui-ret)titioas start in the night 
for Canada. 

In the spring of 1834, the Southwicks moved to South Dan- 
vers, now Peabody. Mass., where they resided until the spring of 
1835 with Isaac Winslow who had married Sarali Hussey, sister 
of Thankful, and who was also an earnest and prominent al)oli- 
tionist. Another sister. Comfort Hussey, married Nathan Wins- 
low, brother of Isaac, and "both brotheis subsciibed for the lirst 
copies of the Liberator^ and suppoited Mr. (larrison heartily 
with their money and interest." It was amidst such highly 
favoralile family associations and social advantages that young 
Sarah Southwick early iml)ibed her anti-slavery sentiments and 
learned how to work with the workers. She was thirteen years of 
age, when, in the wintei- of 1834, she attended the first of the 
famous Anti-Slavery Fail's in Boston, being accompanied by her 
father and sisters. Here she saw for the first time Mrs. Lydiu 
Maria Child, who with IMrs. Ellis Gray Loring managed the Fair, 



loG 

and whom she wanted veiT much to see, having been a reader of 
her '• Juvenile Miscellany." Observing, on one of the tables, 
certain articles which her muther had stimulated her to make for 
the sale, she asked Mrs. Child the price of one of her own needle- 
books, whereupon the good lady said, "■ It is marked fifty cents, 
but it is not well made, and you may have it for two shillings." 
Long afterward Mrs. Child wrote some account of the occasion 
and remarked : " Our chief purchasers were three Quakers and 
their families, Isaac Winslow, Nathan Winslow, and Joseph 
8 >uthwick, who have all ascended to a higher plane of existence." 
Miss Southvvick attended nearly evei'y succeeding Fair for twenty- 
live years, and she recalls the circumstance that her uncle Isaac 
once startled an Anti-8laveiy convention by i)utting into its con- 
tribution box the generous sum of one thousand dollars. 

In the spring of 18i}5, the family removed from South Dan- 
vers to Boston, where they resided for two years in Uigii street. 
In the summer she and her mother attended a meeting of the 
IJoston Female Anti-Slavery Society, which they both joined, and 
duiing the same season she was present at another meeting, when 
Mrs. Maria Chapman became a member and spoke of her interest 
in the cause and of her desire to aid it. At the time of the 
annual meeting, on the 21st of October, of the same year, •' the 
excitement in regard to George Thompson was at its height." 
(Miss Southwick's brief account of the "• liustou Mob" is given 
in her address.) Of this celebrated orator and philanthropist 
who was again and again a guest at her home, she says, "• What 
an enthusiasm I felt for him, wliat admiration, and how interested 
we were in everythmg he said t * * * * He was always 
eloquent, but when aroused he spoke with such rapidity and flow 
of words as I have never heard tVom any one since, except the 
Rev. Phillips Brooks. * * * * As he seldom wanted to 
retire till eleven or twelve, he would entertain us, after the Anti- 
Slavery friends who made a point of coming in the evening had 
left, with stories and reminiscences of his youth and of English 
life, which were both charming and amusing." On the day he 
sailed for England, Sarah was sent to Mr. Garrison's house in 
Brighton street to tell him that Mr. Thompson was to take his 
departure at one o'clock. Notwithstanding all precaution to the 
contrary, his movements got noised abroad and were duly 
ciironicled in the evening papers. "• After he left (l)y a schooner 
bound for St. John), his wife and thiee children came to our 
house, and were comfortably fitted out by friends for the return 
voyage to England by a regular sailing packet from New York." 
In 18(3G, Mr. Thompson, on his third visit to America, was 
present and spoke at the funeral of his excellent friend and 



i;37 

hospitable host, Joseph Soiithwiek, whieh took jilaee at (iiant- 
ville. 

Miss Southwick first made aeciiiaintanee with tiie Griinke 
sisters, JSarah and Angelina, in Irto?, on their arrival from the 
South at Boston, where they began their lectures ])efore the 
Female Anti-81avery Society. She thinks she first heard these 
noble women one afternoon at a very crowded meeting in Amorv 
Hall, which was situated at the corner of Washington and West 
streets. Having emancipated their own slaves in South Cai-olina 
and seen the evil of slavery as others had not, they were all the 
more competent to interest and instruct northern people in i-egard 
to the subject, and wherever they went, in their extensive travels 
in this part of the country, their lectures were attended, as at 
Boston, by large throngs of both sexes and did very much to 
encourage and strengthen the work of the refoi'uiers. Angelina 
became the wife of Mr. Theodore D. Weld. 

The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society held its annual 
meeting of January, 1837, in the /Stable of the Marlboro' Hotel, 
Boston, and Miss Southwick believes she attended all its sessions 
which were continued through three successive days. The Hotel 
stood on Washington street, 0|)posite Franklin street. On the 
site of the stable, Francis Jackson and others snbsecpiently built 
the Marlboro' Chapel, in ihe lower hall of which the Boston Female 
Anti-Slavery Society, or the Abolitionists, for 3'ears held their 
fairs, and "■Concerts of Prayer," and regular or occasional 
meetings. It was at one of these meetings, called to considei- 
tlie nuirder of Lovejoy at Alton, III., that Sarah first heard 
"Wendell Phillips and Pklmund Quiucy on a distinctively Auti- 
Siavery occasion. But she had, shortly before, had the great 
privilege of hearing Phillips deliver, at the inunense indignation 
meeting in Faneuil Hall, Dec. 8, 1887, the remarkable speech 
which at once made the nnknown youth forevermore famous. 
AVomen at that time were not in the habit of attending political 
gatherings of any kind, but a handful of them, thirteen in all. 
made the venture at this time and ranged themselves in the front 
seat of the right gallery as one enteis the Hall. "After that, 
Anti-Slavery women, certainly, always went when tlu-y wanted to. 
I do not recall the names of all the women. The only ones I am 
sure of are Mrs. Chapman and some of her sisters, my mother, 
my two sisters, and myself." And the narrative tells us, also, 
tliat when Mr. Phillips, roused by the unex[)ected utterances of 
the Attorney-General from the front gallery in denunciation of 
the Martyr, rose and asked the privilege to speak, he " stood on 
the floor in front, near the left gallery;" and then, when he was 
invited to come forward upon the stage, "stood on the same 



138 

platform with the other speakers, near the left gallerj' as yon face 
the platform, and with his back to the portraits." These partic- 
nlars, given by one who was there to see and hear, fifty-five years 
ago, can hardly be nninteresting to any one who may hereafter 
visit the old " Cradle of Liberty," for nothing in all its history 
can qnite thrill us with admiration like that maiden speech of the 
matchless orator of freedom, taken in connection with all the 
circumstances of the occasion. Says Miss Houthwick, ''I think 
nobody in these daj's can understand the power of that speech 
over that audience. I was young, but to my mind Wendell 
Phillips was the impersonation of beauty, grace, and eloquence." 

Our friend was present, also, at the ever-to-be-remembered 
National Anti-Slavery Convention of women, held in Philadelphia, 
in May, 1)S38. It was her first visit to that city, and she was 
accompanied by her mother and her sister Abby, by her aunt. 
Ruth Hussey, and by her uncle, Isaac Winslow, and his daughter, 
now Mrs. P^mily W. Taylor, of Germantown, Pa., whose letter 
for the Danvers meeting appears on a previous page of this 
volume. The hall in which the convention was to be held had 
been built by abolitionists and others, and had been dedicated to 
" Free Speech," and it was the largest and most beautiful in the 
city. For the fiist day or two, in the daytime, a howling mob 
surrounded the doors and filled the entries, while, at the evening 
meetings, stones and brickbats smashed the windows and broke 
in the Venetian blinds ; and rotten eggs and other missiles were 
thrown in upon the audience. At one of these meetings, as many 
as three thousand came to hear Abl)y Kelly, Maria Weston 
Chapman, and Angelina Grimke. ''How bravely they tried to be 
heard above the tumult outside, and the hisses and shouts inside !" 
The next evening, the women, as they arrived at the Hall and 
found a dense crowd surrounding it, were told that the Mayor 
had closed it and forbidden its use. Returning to their Hotel, 
they soon heard that their beautiful hall was on fire, and, 
ascending to the roof, they watched it, with mingled grief and 
horror, as it burned to the ground. 

In May, 1840, the Southwicks and Winslows all went to the 
memora])le annual meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, 
when the division took place on questions relating to women as 
members and oflBcers. and to the attitude of the churches. The 
sentiment in favor of women as members preponderated and 
Abby Kelley was placed on the lousiness committee, whereupon, 
after much discussion, a large number of the delegates, including 
the great body of the ministers, withdrew from the old organiza- 
tion and formed " the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery 
Society," establishing soon afterward, as their organ, " The 



139 

National Anti-Slavery Standard" in place of the " Eniancii)ator." 
The division, thns consuTuniated, was of vast impoitance. The 
new society, with its exclusion of women, was comparatively 
inerticient and short-lived. The old one survived, with the con- 
tinned lead of Garrison and the powerful aid and sympathy of 
those who were sought to be shut out, but whose moral support 
and practical help were found to be so necessary to true success. 
Hence, too, more and more, the antagonism between the church 
and anti-church parties. 

In 1839, Miss Southwick heard Frederick Douglass make his 
lirst speech at an Anti-Slavery Convention in Nantucket, whither 
he had been persuaded to go and tell his story. '• He was green 
and awkward and emitariassed. He spoke at first with hesita- 
tion, but soon regained self-possession and made a very straight- 
forward and earnest statement of his life and what he had seen of 
Slavery. The audience was greatly moved." After an illus- 
trious subsequent career of about fifty years the great orator made 
a speech at a breakfast which was given to him by Mrs. Mosher 
at Cambridge, at which a large company of notables like Drs. 
Hedge and Hale, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe and Miss Elizabeth 
Peabo<ly, and Rev. Samuel Longfellow and Mr. and Mrs. 
Sanuiel K. Sewall, were present, when Col. T. W, Higginson 
asked him how he had learned to speak so fluently considering 
his lack of opportunity in his youth, and whether he never felt a 
stage fright in his jniblic address. Mr. Douglass greatly 
amused the company with his characteristic reply: "I assure 
you, gentlemen, I never felt so near having a stage fright in my 
life as at this moment," meaning, as Miss Southwick says, in the 
jyresence of so many peojyle of cultivation mid education. 

Miss Southwick also gives an interesting account of one of 
the annual Anti-Slavery picnic excursions in which she was wont 
to join, and of her ac(|uaintance with the Westons and Chap- 
mans aiul the service they rendered to the cause generally. The 
Weston family were of marked genius and culture. Mrs. Chap- 
man, who was considered "very handsome," was the eldest of 
the sisters and was '' the soul of our fairs." And the narrator 
adds: "• She was queenly in gait and manner, and I think her 
sacrifices of social position, when she allied herself to the Anti- 
Slavery Cause, were very great." They were all frecpient vis- 
itors at the house of the Southwicks. "I had no young friend 
for whom I had the affection that I had for Lucia Weston." 
These two, Sarah and Lucia, for successive years, circulated 
petitions and attended Anti-Slavery Conventions together, some- 
times occupying an attic room when crowded out of their own 
apartments by guests who swarmed the meetings. " I wont to 



140 

fichool to Caroline ^VestOQ" (at Iilt residence on lio^lston street 
wiiere the Public Liltrury now stands), and '•'■ 1 looic back to her 
as a teacher and life-long friend with love and gratitude. — a 
iseusible, cultivated, unaffected, warm-hearted woman, whom 
everybody respected. How much 1 owe to her in the way of 
education, I can never express." ^he and her sister Anne wrt)te 
Anti-Slavery poems and articles for the •• Liberty Bell," an Anti- 
Slavery Annual which Mrs. Chapman edited for the Fairs. Anne, 
and Deborah "the prettiest," and Emma ''the youngest," all 
died as recently as 188'J, in Paris. " For the last thirty years 1 
saw very little of them, as the^^ resided a long tune in France." 

Miss ISouthwick, who now resides at Wellesley Ilitls, Mass., 
concludes her book by saying, "Sometimes, when I lu'ai' Mr. 
Garrison named witli revei'ence and the abolitionists spoken of 
with admiration, my mind goes back fifty years, and I wonder if 
I can be living; in the same comnuuiity and country where Mr. 
Garrison w:is regarded with contumely and shunned as a fanatic, 
and where Abolitionists were excluded from polite society. To 
Mr. Garrison, the change in pulilic opinion must have seemed 
nothing less than miraculous. "It is the Lord's doing, and it is 
luarvelous in our eves.' " 



Additional Coimtributions. 



^^'(' ;i|ii»t'n(l ;i few Intel' contriluilions to oiii' Ixxjk, from some 
\v('ll-ki)(>\vn t'riciids \vln> Ii:i\c kiiidlv written them :it our re(jiiest : 
]\Ir. Ueiirv I). lUacUwell, the veteriiii tulvoeate of freedom for the 
Slave and of Womau's Rights, for whose expeeted speech at the 
meeting, nnfortiinately, there was not time ; JNIr. F. B. Sanhoi'n, 
of literal'}' fame, wlio is rich with anti-slavery recollections and 
lore, and whom it would have been a great privilege to hear, bnt 
who was then faraway in old classic liiiids ; and Dr. Charles A. 
(ireene, a descendant of (i:'n. Nathniiiel (ireene. who presents 
highly interesting testimony aliout the •• liuston iNlolj." as did 
Kev. Dr. (i. W . Poi'ler in his address; ami Mrs. C. S. Brown 
Spear, who with her first luisband, llev. Abel Brown, and witli 
lier second. Rev. Charles Spear, was long engaged in philan- 
tlu'opic work, and who gives us some reminiscences of scenes and 
occurrences of which she herself was a witness and '• a part." 

FROM MR. HFNRY B. BLACKWELL. 

The interesting anecdotes and reminiscences to which 1 
listened at the Danvers Re-union of Abolitionists, have I'ecalled to 
my mind many yontlifn) memories of the first teii years of the 
Anti-Slavery agitation, from 1830 to 1840, the most arduous 
))eriod of all because carried on at tirst witliont organized support- 
and in face of a commnnity in entire .sympathy with the slave 
})ower. 

It was my fortune as a boy to see something of the ]»egin- 
nings of the abolition movement in tills country. My father, an 
English sugar-refiner, came from Bristol to this country in 1832, 
with the hope that slave-labor cane-sugar might be supplanted by 
free-labor beet-sugar, as had already been done in (Termany aiKl 
France. He w-as a sngar-refiner in New York City from 1832 to 
1838, erecting in 1M31 the (list vacuum jians ever used in the 
I'nited States. In 1832 he became a member of Rev. Dr. Samuel 
Hanson Cox's Presbyterian Chnrcii on Eaight .St., and liad many 
earnest conversations with his pastor, who was then intensely 
pro-slavery. An ardent liberal and an admirer of American 



142 

institutions, luy father as a " Claikson abolitionist," was shoeko<l 
and amazed at the universal subservience of the American pre^s 
and pulpit to '• the sum of all villainies," and at the low standard 
of political morals. In a little volume which he printed a few 
years later under the unpretentious title of "Slaveiy Rhymes," 
lie thus characterized that eia of decadence : — 

Unerring signs proclaim an absent God, 
Uue:irtiiiy liands have written Icliabod. 

In 1831 Mr. Garrison started The Liberator o\\ its immortal 
mission and practically began his anti-slavery crusade. In 1833 
a convention of abolitionists met in Philadelphia and adopted a 
"• Declaration of .Sentiments," which was signed by rei)reseuta- 
tives of many states. That Declaration, with the engraved 
autographs of its signeis, hung for yeais in our parlor, and my 
father used to say that the signeis would some day be held in 
greater honor than the signers of the original Declaration of 
Independence. 

in 1833, Rev. Dr. Cox visited England to attend a great 
meeting of the ••Evangelical Alliance." He there found anti- 
slaverv j)opular in evangelical circles, and, on his return to New 
York preached a s.'rles of anti-slavery sermons, little dreaming of 
the stoim he would evoke. In one of these he called attention to 
the fact that Jesus was not of the Caucasian race, the Jews beina; 
descendants of Shem. At once it was announced that he had said 
that the Savior was a '• nigger," and everyone was thrilled with 
holy horror, especially the roughs. Immediately the houses of 
all the prominent abolitionists of New York were sacked by mobs. 
Among others Rev. Dr. Cox and his brother. Dr. Abram L. Cox, 
a leading physician, had to tiy for their lives. They took refuge 
in my father's country house near Newtown, Long Island, where 
they remained for a week in hiding. 1 remember the profound 
depression of spirit shown by the worthy divine : while his 
l>rother, the physician, practiced pistol-shooting behmd our barn, 
and put several bullets into the back of our old famdy carriage. 
We children were enthusiastic abolitionists. We named one of 
our horses ^ Garrison" and anot'.u'r •■ Prudence Crandall." 
Whittier's songs of freedom were household words. I remember 
Dr. Abram L. Cox quoting, with tiery emphasis, the words: 

" Great God ! And there are they 

Who minister at thy altur. God of Ri^lit! 

Men %vh() their liands with prayer and blejisiug lay 
( Ml Lsrael's Arlv of lii-iit I 

Wliat! Preach and kidnap uK-n ! 
Give thanks, and rob tiniie own afflicted p 'orl 

Talk of Tiiy gloru uss lil>erty, ami ihen 
Bolt hard the captive's tloorl" 



143 

In 1834: the lir^t New York Auti-Slavery fair was held in 
Ni'olo't) Garden. As a boy of 9 years I was kei)t busy writing 
mottoes for '• Sugar Kisses" for tluit occasion. At that fair in 
1834, I tirst saw Gerrit Smith, tlieu in tlie l)loom of earl}' man- 
hood, a maguiticent personality. About that time George Thomp- 
son first visited this country and delivered anti-slavery lectures of 
remarkable power and eloquence. He was at once assailed as a 
British emissary sent out to sow dissensions and break up the 
Union. So bitter was the feeling that he was compelled to leave 
the country. I was present at an abolition meeting in a church 
on the corner of Thompson and Broome streets when Thompson 
denounced two agents of the British and Foreign Bible Society 
who had been seduced by Southern hospitalit}' and written reports 
white-washing the Patriarchal Institution. Soon brickbats and 
stones came pouring in at broken windows, and we were driven 
out by the mob. These events of 59 years ago, when I was a 
mere boy, seem like yesterday. The prominent New York 
workers then were Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Gerrit Smith, 
Beriah Green, Anson Phelps, the brothers Cox, Joshua Leavitt, 
and a few years later David and L. Maria Child, and Oliver 
Johus(»n. 

It is hard to conceive the ferocity displayed by the pro-slavery 
community from 183U to 1840. It was simply demoniacal. 
Cuban sugar planters whom my father as a refiner met daily in 
Wall vSt., said frankly that they found it profitable to'* workout" 
their negroes every seven years and then replace them by new 
ones from Africa. The anti-slavery papers were the Liberator 
and the Emancipator. Later, about 1840, came the Anti- 
Slavery Standard. 

In 1838, misled b}' the hope of raising beet sugar, we moved 
to Cincinnati, a ten days' journey from New York. There we 
found James G. Birney and Dr. Gamahel Bailey editing and 
publishing The Philanthrojnut (afterwards merged in The 
Natio)ial Era). Three times the printing office was mobbed and 
the type and press thrown into tiie Ohio river. There, on the 
slave line, with Kentucky across the river, the bitterness was 
proscriptive. Every few years border ruffians invaded the city 
under the pretext of reclaiming fugitive slaves, and in pure 
deviltry drove the free colored people from their little homes and 
destroyed their household effects. After the damage was done, 
the authorities made a show of interfering antl called for volunteer 
" dei)uty-marshals" to preserve order. This was very enjoyable 
to the young men, who marched all night through empty streets 
after the excitement had subsided. The leading Ohio abolition- 
ists were Birneys and Donaldsons, Leir Coffin, Harwood Burnett, 



144 

Israel Ludlow, John Jolliffe. nnd, Inter, on the Liberty paity 
l)latforin, were Jiirney, Samnel Lewis, and .Salmon J'. Chase. 
The centre of work in Cincinnati was Mrs. Sarah Otis Einst, who 
with her brave Geiman lais,band, A. H. p^i-nst, had a beautiful 
home in the suburbs, to which she gathered the faithful few who 
endured social ostracism for the slave's sake. About 1845, Abby 
Kelly and Stephen S. Foster, then in their prime as agitators and 
orators, held a series of meetings in the old Millerite Tabernacle 
in Cincinnati. There I became nearly baptised in abolitionism, 
only it took with me the form of Lilierty party, then Free-soil 
party, and eventually Kepul)lican party. 

The abolition movement was so wide in its area and so varied 
in its manifestations that no one occasion or locality can do it 
justice. The value of such local gatherings as that at Danvers is 
to add, by personal reminiscences, to the memories of the great 
moral and political movement which al)olished slavery in America. 



P^ROM MR. F. B. SANBORN. 

Concord, Mass., August 17, 1893. 

Dear Doctor Putnam : — Had I been in America at the time, 
nothing could have given me greater pleasure than to meet with 
you and my old friends, the anti-slavery men of 40 and 50 years 
ago, to listen to their recollections, and, if the word came to one of 
tlie younger partisans, to add my word of history or suggestion to 
the full reminiscences of the veterans, such as Fisher, Hutchinson, 
May and Pillsbury. Now you ask me to come in as a final 
course, with some mention of VVhittier the Poet, and Sumner the 
Statesman, both friends, and the former a far-away eonsin of 
mine. I do this the more willingly, because I have somehow 
heard that, in the copious praise of VVhittier as a poet and a man, 
full justice has not been done to his early and effective service in 
the anti-slaver}' cause. None was more earnest, and few more 
serviceal)le than he. or for a longer period ; he was not quite so 
early in the lield as his friend Garrison, but neither did he mingle 
with his opposition to slavery so many other fancies and animos- 
ities, such as hampered and distracted Garrison not a little, in his 
noble crusade. As for Charles Sumner, — though the completion 
of his extended biography, a few months since, by Mr. E. L. 
Pierce, leaves little to be desired by those who knew and hon- 
ored that great public character, — yet the tone of some criticisms, 
lately printed gives one to feel that Shakespeare was quite right 
(as usual) in making Ulysses say to his brother chieftain : — 



U.J 

" Perseverance, dear iny lord. 
Keeps lioiior briijlit : to have done is to li:iiiir 
Quite out of fashion. * * * Let not Virtue seek 
]\enuineration for tlie tiling it was, — 

For heautj', wit, 
High birth, viiior of 1)one, desert in service, 
Love, friendsliip, charity, are subject all 
To envious and calumniating Time." 

As it happened, I becaine familiar vvitli the iiaine of Whitticr, 
as most men did, 40 years ago, — liefore I heard of the rechise 
niid seliolarly Sumner, liorn in New Hampshire, wliere Whitlier 
had many relatives and friends, my earliest anti-slavery I'eeolKc-- 
tions are associated with an '' Anti-Slavei'y Almanac," published. 
I think, hy Garrison, at tlie " Lilierator" workshop of such 
weapons, in which was a cut of my mother's cousin, Kenlien 
Leavitt, a Merrimac County sheriff, arresting ]\lr. Storrs, an 
Abolitionist minister, wliile on his knees, praying against negro- 
slavery. I hardly knew then wliat the words meant; nor couhl I 
understand what enormity the bland and tine-looking kinsman 
wiio sometimes came to our house, could have connnitted, b> lie 
t'nis iield up for reprobation. l>ut as years went by, and I read 
tJK' newspapei's, and Whittier's verses, and came to know a 
little of another cousin, Moses Noi-ris. then in Congress; of his 
leadei'. Franklin Pierce, (whom I had heard, a handsome lawyer, 
pleading for a criminal at our Ivockingham court) ; and the rest 
of the New Hampshire Democracy, I followed eagerly the lead of 
my brother Charles and his friends, in our little town of llaini)ton 
Falls (where Whittier died last year) to the support of 'b>lin I'. 
Hale, when revolting against tiie pro-slavery dictation of Pierce 
and Norris. This was in 18 lo. and tlie immediate question was 
the annexation of Texas. I was then but 13 years old ; yet my 
anti-slavery sentiments were as clear and pronounced as they ever 
have l)een since; the cause l)eing one wiiich appealed to the 
emotions, and did not re(piire arguments addressed to tiie undci- 
standing. Tlie next year, 184(;, our party, the Independent 
Democrats, uniting with the Wliigs. who had long been a hopeless 
minority in New Hampshire, carried the State election, in March, 
and Whittier, from his cottage at Amesbury, poured forlli his 
exultation at our success, in a burlesque poem, put into the form 
of a letter from F'rank Pierce to my cousin Norris. which FJiznr 
Wright printed in his Boston Chronotype (that admiiablc little 
hornet of a newspaper), and whicii had much vogue in New 
Hanqishire. I could once repeat it all, but will sp.irc you all 1mi( 
a few stanzas. Pierce began : — 

'Ti;-. o\er, JVIoscf. I all i.- lo:4. 1 
I hear tne hells a-ringm^-. 



146 

Of Pharaoh and liis TJcd-Sea host 

I liear the Free Wills singiii;;. 
We're routed, Moses, horse and foot, 

If there be truth in figures : 
With 'Federal Whiics' in hot pursuit, 

And Hale with all his nig-gers. 

Till' ' Kri'O-Wills' were the ' Freewill Baptists,' then a strong sect 
ill New Hampshire, and mainly, like the Quakers, on the anti- 
slavery side. Pierce, in the verses, then went on to mention tlic 
sfld omens that had foreshadowed this political overturn, — naming 
anKMii: others our unlucky cousin Reuben, whose assault on free 
siieech could not be forgiven : — 

Our Belknap lirother heard with awe 

Tiie ConiiO minstrels playing: 
At Pittstield. Reuben Leavitt saw 

Ttie ghost of Storrs a-praying : 
And ParroU's woods were sad to see, 

With black-winged crows adarting; 
And Blaek-Snout l-oked on Ossipee, 

New glossed wi h Day & Mai tin. 

We thought the 'Old Man of the Noteh' 

His face seemed changing wholly. — 
His lips seemed thick, his nose seemed Hat, 

His misty hair looked woolly; 
And Coos teamsters shrieking ttad 

Tilt' metamorphosed figure; 
'Jest look ! tliat old stone cuss,' tliey said, 

'Himself is turnin" nigger.' 

Belknap, Carroll, and Coos are counties in New Unuipshirc, — 
while Black-Snout and Ossipee are two mountains, higher than 
Hyinettus or Pentelieus, though with less musical names, between 
the tovvns of Ossipee and Sandwich, through which tne Bearcamp 
river drains dow.n to the Saco, in regions long since made familiar 
to his readers by Whittier's more serious i)oetry. The Old Man 
of the Notch is the "■Great Stone Face" that IMerce/s friend, 
Hawthorne, soon after described, in one of his l)est romantic 
satires ; it overlooks th€ Francoiiia Notch, down which the 
teamsters of Coos county must drive, in the days before the iron 
liorsc superseded their slower cattle. 

Ten years after this satire, President Pierce was giving 
.leffcrson I)avis full power to make Kansas a slave state, if he 
couUl ; and we were striving (successfidly, as it i)roved), to 
prevent him. Then it was that John JJroton made himself 
known to his conutrymen, who never afterward could forget him ; 
and then also, Whittier lent the powerful aid of liitj verse, 
feingiug, — ' 



147 

VVc tread tlic piMiiio as of old 

Our fatliors sailctl tlie sea, 
A\h\ make the West, as they the East. 

The homestead of the free. 

Nor let VIS forget, while thinking of the grand effort that saved 
Kansas to Freedom, and gave ns our first i;reat advantage in the 
eivil war, — the control of the regions l,)ey(Mjd the Missouri, — let 
ns never forget what Charles Sumner did for us in that eventfid 
year, 185G. Had he laid down his life when death came so near 
liini then, he could not have suffered more, nor deserved better of 
his country. Yet we lived to see mean meii, perverted hy 
l^olitical hatred (meanest of the small passions), inflict upon 
Sumner the formal censure of Massachusetts, for one of the most 
generous acts, even of his most generous life. It is a pleasure to 
lemember how gallantly Whittier, though differing from Sumner 
in some points, stood by hin) in that day, and gave his best 
efforts to have the disgrace of Massachusetts, — for Sumner could 
not be defamed by such a censure, — wiped off' by the men who 
iiad incurred it. In the same way. tlie unworthy voices that have 
lately piped up to belittle and disparage Sumner, will cease to be 
heai'd, as the true measui'e of that man is taken by posterit}', — 
and he is seen to have stood next to Lincoln in the ranks of civil 
and political life, during the second and more important American 
Kevolution.— that of IHGO— 187-'). 

Yours for truth, 

F. H. Sam'.oisx. 

FROM CHARLP:S a. GREENE, M. D. 

In 1829, my father jniblished (in a Iniilding called 31erc}iants 
lioio) a newspaper, entitled '•'The Christian Herald." The 
building stood at the corner of Congress and Water streets, 
Boston, Mass. Another building of the same name now occupies 
the same site. Hon. Chailes Sumner's father was a co-partner 
of iny father in the issuing of the above peiiodical. In the lattei- 
part of 1830, Mr. Garrison moved into the building and occupied 
one room opposite my father's, on the third floor; and began 
j)reparations for the issuing of ""The Liberator," and, as my 
memory serves me, issued trie first number on the 1st of Jan., 
1831. Of one matter I am confiilent, my l»rother Samuel and 
mvself carried to the subscribers of the Herald qhcU of its issues 
in Boston ; and to accommodate Mr. Garrison, in his poveity, 
my father hel|)ed him by having my brother and myself deliver 
his issues. And I well rememl)er quite a number of the sub- 
scribers to whom I served the paper, viz : Dr. Abner Phelps, 
who lived directly opposite the l)nilding called Merchant.^ Jiow; 



14« 

a man who was engaged in the liquor bnsiness, named D. Weld, 
on Washington 8t., above the Lion Tavern, in a greenhouse that 
had its end towards the street ; and a painter by ths name of 
(ireen, on the same street. ]My father had in his employ a 
printer named Rowland Hart, and he did the press-work for my 
fntlier on a Franklin Press similar to the one now belonging to 
the Bostonian Society. Sometime previous to the above issue of 
" The Liberator," my father became well acquainted with Mr. 
Garrison, and was in decided sympathy with his work. Knowing 
his impoverishment, he loaned him types and set up the matter 
for his first and after issues, and Rowland Hart did the press- 
work. At that time my father lived on the opposite side of 
Congress Street, over the Arcii. At the time that the Anti- 
Slavery movement was being talked of, wdien the mob threatened 
the life t)f Rlr. Garrison and while he was on his way to the 
Leverett St. jail, where he could be in safety, my father ran all 
tlie way by the side of the vehicle, and us it was turning off 
(ireen St. on to Leverett, a man rushed up to the carriage and 
caught ]Mr. Garrison by his white neck-tie, and at once twisted 
it around, endeavoring to* kill him, by thus throttling him. It 
was suddenly done ; and when the victim's tongue had been 
forced out of his mouth by the operation, my fatlier caught hold 
of the collar of the man (who had a blue coat with brass buttons) 
and tore it in twain, and loosened his hold at the same time, and 
Mr. Garrison was taken to the jail. I have heard ray father tell 
the story more tiian a score of times. He was a very powerful 
man, weighing 225 pounds, and noted in his youth, and in his 
collegiate course at Brown, for his gieat strength. In 1835, my 
father became a co-partner of Ebenezer Hayward (who was also a 
subscriber to '' The Liberator"), and they opened, in Wilmington, 
N. C, a store to which they shipped articles from New England, 
and the vessels returned with tar, shooks, sugar, conch shells, 
I'csiu, and other Southern commodities. The first year that my 
father lived thei'e, my brother Samuel taught a few negroes their 
letters. When about to return to the South the next year, some 
of my father's Wilmington friends advised him not to do so, as 
I lis life would be taken in consequence of the above attempt at 
the education of the "chattels." So my father sent an agent 
there and closed up the store. 

There comes to mind the name of another strong Anti-Slavery 
m;in. 1 know his name was Clough — I think Ebenezer C. He 
lived near, or on, Pleasant Street. He was one of the last men 
in Boston to wear the short pants aiul silR stockings, and had 
silver buckles on his shoes. He was a subscribe)' to '' Tiie 
]^iberator." 



119 
FROM MRS. CATHARINE S. B. SPEAR. 

T never was eoiiveited to Aiiti-Shivery. I never was any- 
thing else from earliest ehildliootl. In my sitelling book, at seven 
years of age, I read a poem, eommeneing '• 1 tiianiv God 1 was 
not born a little slave, to labor in the sun," etc. But 1 don't, 
for God never made a slave ! No one was honi a slave under 
the Divine Law. This is t>f man's device. Hooker says, '^^aw 
has its seat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of 
the Universe." 

We had a fugitive slave to live with us and to labor in my 
father's family. He h:\d escaped from New York, for slavery 
then existed there. We children were very fond of Henry and 
liked to hear him tell stories. Much attention was afterward 
given to the subject of Coloiiization, l)ut I never liked the scheme. 
I I'ecall, how in my school days I expressed Anti-Slavery senti- 
ments in one of my compositions and what good imi)ressions were 
made on my mind by the poems of Cowper and Montgomery. 
Cyrus F. Grosvenor was the lirst one to give me documents and 
tracts for distribution. Copies of the JJMrator, as often as 
l>ul)lished, were also forwarded to me for the same purpose, by 
JNIr. Garrison and Mrs. Chapman. I soon heard of Frederick 
Douglass and wrote to John A. Collins to send him " forthwith" 
to Hubbardston, ni}' native town, where he created a great furor. 
An effort was made to turn me out of church, not by our good 
old minister. Rev. Samuel Gay, but hy a new preacher from New 
York. It proved a failure and he himself left the Parish. 

We had, previous to this affair, an extensive grove meeting, 
an Anti-Slavery gathering of sixteen hnudi'ed people, at which 
INIr. (iai risou and six ministers were [)iesent and on the stand; 
and abolitionists came from Pi'inceton, as linn as their own 
Wachusett. We had four banners in the line of march, with a 
band ot music and with a figure of Liberty. The Ladies' l)anner 
was a circular one, bearing the iuscri[)tion " Unioersal Liberty^^'' 
and decorated with evergreen, with the figure of an eagle, the 
emblem of our Republic, in the centre. 

A little slave bo3% Anderson, was present on the occasion, 
imder the charge of Dr. Hoyt of Athol, who had recently 
obtained his manumission from the court in Worcester. Standing 
on the platform, he was presented with a banner and acknowl- 
edged the gift by saying : "I tank you, my brudder, for dis love- 
token. It can be mine now. 1 once was a poor little Aikansas 
slave, but now the tlag of the free shall o'er }ne wave!" The 
grove echoed with api)lause. 

I was living in Boston at the time of the rendition of Antlu^ny 



150 

Burns ami have witnessfd many affccliiig scones in Washington. 
I have expostuhited with slave-iinnteis under the sliadow of the 
Capitol, and asked them how tliey dared to take their victims, 
who were our countrymen, l)ack into Slavery. 1 could only go to 
the rendezvous of the poor creatures and tell them of their danger 
and bid them to hide. 

Mr. Spear was ap|)ointed Chaplain by President Lincoln and 
we ever remembered the slave. I was his companion in visiting 
prisons and in lecturing. We had the pleasure of thanking 
President Lincoln for his Proclamation of Emancipation, and he 
said to Mr. Spear, " 1 am much obliged to you," and he would 
have said the same to every Abolitionist in the land. 

My first companion was Rev. Abel Brown, who died a martyr 
to the cause of Freedom and of Temperance combined — the 
result of moboci'atic violence. I was with him in fice riots. His 
resting place is at Canandaigua, N. Y. 



FROM A FRIEND OF HON. SIMEON DODGE. 

Among those who were present at the Danvers meeting on 
the 2(Jth of April, weie Lion, and JNhs. Simeon Dodge, of Marble- 
head. Their home, all through the darkest days of the cause, was 
the shelter of the fugitives who were sent from Boston for safety. 
A very large number found shelter, food, and clothing there, and 
were concealed there for days and weeks together, while the pro- 
slavery spies were constantly watching around the premises. Mr. 
Dodge prepared, in consequence, a secret trap-door for the slaves 
to use in escaping, in case a raid was made upon the house by 
the officers of the law. He, in connection with the late John A. 
Innis and others — Abolitionists of Salem — maintained an '•'under- 
ground railroad" to Canada, and at dead of night Mr. Dodge has 
carried fugitives to Salem, and with the aid of others sent them 
on toward the Canada line. 

During all the time of the " Fugitive Slave Law." Mr. Dodge 
kept on with his good work, receiving the eainest co-operation of 
his excellent wife ; and under that " Law" they were in constant 
danger of arrest and imprisonment, and of fines which would 
have taken away every dollar they had in the Avorld. William 
and Ellen Craft were concealed there for a considerable time, 
when the slave-hunters came to Boston to re-capture them. 

It was much easier in those days to make speeches, than to 
do the work and run the constaiU risks — cheerfully done and 
bravely borne l)y those nol)le souls, Simeon Dodge and wife, of 
Marblehead, 



'^TIIK LIIlKIJATOPv" TN DANVERS. 

Spfcial Mckiiowlcd^inciits aiv due and nuuk' to Mr. Francis 
•T. (iairisoii and otliL'f friends who, from their wide acquaintance 
with the general Anti-Nlaveiy field and its woik. have given ns 
much valualtle infoimation which we liave sought in aid of the 
preparation of the foregoing pages. INIention has been made of 
several of the original snl)sciil>ers for the Liberator^ in Danveis. 
At some subsecpient date, the names Jiad become nmch more 
niinu'rous, as will be seen from the following list which Mr. (lar- 
rison has kindly fnriushed ns. TIk^v belong to both i)arts of the 
old t(jwn, ])efore South Dauvers took the name of Peaixxlv :— 

Ezra Ikdchelder, Ezra Batchelder, .Jr.. Daniel V. Baker. Mrs. 
(Tertrude Barrett, Daniel Buxton, .Ir., (). A. Buzzell, Eli F. 
Burnhum, Mrs. ]\Iary P. Clough, J. P). Cojip. Mrs. Betsey Cutler, 
•lohn Cutler, Ezra Dodge, William Endicott. William Francis, dr., 
Mrs. S. Grout, Augustus H. Hammond. Jesse P. Ilarriman, 
Wendell P. Hood, Dr. Ebenezer Hunt, William B. Jenness, Per- 
ley King, VVilliam A. Legro, Walter .S. Lovi^-joy, Joseph Merrill. 
Isaac Mnnroe, Maria S. Page, Isaac W. Roberts, James M. Saw- 
yer, Samuel Staples, Miss Altigait Symonds, Andrew W. Trask, 
Edward D. Trask, Abel H. Tyler, Putnam Webb, and Rev. Mi'. 
Williams. 

At Danvers •' New Mills," if not also in other i)arts of the 
town, there weie a few subscribers, Richard Hood and others, for 
the Herald of Freedom. Concord, N. H., edited by N. P. Rogers. 
A half-dozen or more of the leatling Abolitionists of the " New 
Mills," or the " Neck," contributed to the pages of both jjapers, 
from time to time. '' The Kuuindpator^''' the organ of tlie Lib- 
erty Party, also had its i)atrous in Danvers. 

In connection with the sketch of Parker Pillsbniy, it should 
be stated that his first distinctive anti-slavery work was the editing 
ui t\\Q Jlerald of Freedom^ for several months during the year 
18 to, while N. P. Rogers, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucretia 
Mott, and other prominent Abolitionists were abroad to atteiul 
the memorable World's Convention in London, to which various 
alhisi«Mis have l>c('n made in this volume. 



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